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THE   CONQUEST  OF    ARID  AMERICA 


3Blg  tbe  game  Hutbon 

••  CONSTRUCTIVE  DEMOCRACY  ;    the   Economics  of  a 
Square  Deal." 


"  This  admirable* work." — Louisville  Courier-Journal. 

"  Eminently  modern  and  practical." — Boston  Transcript. 

"The  most  important  economic  study  since  *  Progress  and 
Poverty."— Om^  West. 

**  We  should  like  to  see  it  read  and  pondered  by  all  journal- 
ists and  congressmen." — Outlook. 

**  Done  with  thoroughness  and  a  scholarly  insight  into  present 
day  conditions." — Boston  Globe. 

"Vigorously  written,  and  by  reason  of  its  constant  use  of 
present  day  materials  is  made  both  interesting  and  inform- 
ing."— St.  Louis  Globe-Democrat. 


Crown  8vo.    Cloth.    $1.50  net. 


WM.    E.    SMYTH  E. 


THE 

CONQUEST  OF  ARID  AMERICA 

(NEW  AND  REVISED  EDITION) 

ILLUSTRATED 


BY 

WILLIAM  E.  SMYTHE 

AUTHOR  OF  "CONSTRUCTIVE  DEMOCRACY,"  ETC. 


NEW   YORK   YOUNG    PEOPLE'S   MISSIONARY 

MOVEMENT   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES 

AND   CANADA 


OoPTBioHT,  1899,  190e, 
Bt  WILLIAM  E.  8MTTHB. 


First  published  elsewhere.    New  edition  December,  1905. 
Reprinted  October,  1907;  October,  1908. 


TSotiawfi  $re«0: 
Berwick  &  Smith  Co.,  Norwood,  Mass.,  U.SJL 


iDdiiuiuiL  uiuioiy 


TO 

MY    WIFE 


CONTENTS 


Dedication iii 

♦•Emaj^cipation" ix 

Foreword xi 

iNTRODQcnoN :  On  Gomo  West,  Youno  Man xv 


PART  FIRST 

COLONIAL   EXPANSION    AT    HOMB 

CHAPTXR 

I.  Greatness  By  Ck)NTiNENTAL  Conquest 8 

II.  The  HoME-BuiLDma  Instinct  op  the  American 

People 13 

ni.  The  Better  Half  op  the  United  States  ....  19 

rv.  The  Blessing  op  Aridity 30 

V.  The  Miracle  op  Irrigation 41 


PART  SECOND 

REAL    UTOPIAS    OP    THB    ARID    WEST 

I.  The  Mormon  Commonwealth 51 

n.  The  Greeley  Colony  op  Colorado 77 

ni.  The  Evolution  op  Southern  Calipornia  ....  92 

IV.  The  Revolution  on  the  Plains     .......  106 

V 


vi  CONTENTS 

PART  THIRD 

UNDEVELOPED    AMERICA 

CHAPTER  PAOE 

I.  The  Empire  State  op  The  Pacific 121 

II.  The  New  Day  in  Colorado 161 

III.  The  Pleasant  Land  of  Utah 175 

IV.  The  Crude  Strength  of  Idaho 185 

V.  The  Giant  Washington 197 

VI.  Oregon  in  Transition 205 

VII.  The  Rising  State  of  Nevada 213 

VIII.  The  Unknown  Land  of  Wyoming 221 

IX.  The  Prosperity  of  Montana 232 

X.  The  Awakening  op  New  Mexico 288 

XI.  The  Budding  Civilization  of  Arizona 248 


PART  FOURTH 

THE    triumph    op    THE  MOVEMENT 

I.  The  Rise  of  a  New  Cause 261 

II.  On  the  Anvil  of  Congress 275 

III.  Irrigation  in  the  White  House 281 

IV.  Uncle  Sam's  Young  Men  at  Work 294 

V.  Preparing  Homes  for  the  People 308 

Conclusion  :  Man's  Partnership  With  God 327 


APPENDIX 


I.  Note  as  to  Methods  op  Irrigation 333 

II.  The  Newlands  Bill  and  the  Act  op  June  17, 1902.    342 


INDEX 351 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Portrait  op  the  Author Frontispiece 

FACING  PAOK 

Flowing  Well,  Riverside  Canal  System,  California.  . .    12 

The  Desert  Before  Reclamation  24 

Growth  of  Vegetation  in  Imperial  Valley,  California.    30 

Park  at  Riverside,  Caufornia 42 

Ranch  at  North  Yakima,  Washington 46 

Palestine  and  Salt  Lake  Valley,  Utah 54 

California  Contrast,  Flowers  and  Snow  at  Pasadena.    94 

The  Colorado  Desert  Before  and  After  Irrigation 152 

Views  of  the  New  Town  of  Imperial,  California 154 

Irrigated  Apricot  Orchard,  near  Montrose,  Colorado..  166 

View  on  Gunnison  River,  Colorado 170 

Mouth  of  Echo  Canyon,  and  Weber  River,  Utah 180 

Building  a  Government  Canal  in  Nevada 214 

Where  the  Gates  Were  Lifted  on  the  Truckeb  River, 

Nevada 216 

Two  Irrigation  Statesmen  and  an  Engineer 220 

Eagle  Dam  Site,  Rio  Grande  Project,  New  Mexico 242 

Arizona  Alfalfa  and  Barley 250 

Irrigating  a  Young  Orchard  in  Arizona 254 

Portrait  of  John  Wesley  Povfell 260 

A  Sample  of  Government  Works,  Nevada 270 

Portrait  of  Francis  G.  Newlands 276 

Government  Road-Building  in  Arizona 278 

vii 


viii  ILLUSTRATIONS. 

FACIMO  PAOB 

Portrait  op  Theodore  Roosevelt 282 

Government  Cement  Mill,  Arizona 288 

Portrait  op  Ethan  Allen  Hitchcock 296 

Portraits    op    Charles    D.    Walcott,  Frederick    H. 

Newell,  C.  E.  Grunsky,  and  Gipford  Pinchot 298 

Site  of  Roosevelt  Dam,  Arizona 308 

Colorado  River  at  High  Water , 310 

Views  of  Klamath  Project,  Oregon. 312 

A  Government  Tunnel  in  Nevada 316 

Works  op  Truckee-Carson  Project,  Nevada 318 


EMANCIPATION 

The  Nation  reaches  its  hand  into  the  Desert^ 

And  lo  !  private  monopoly  in  water  and  in  land  is  scourged 

from  that  holiest  of  temples, — the  place  where  men 

labor  and  build  their  homes  ! 

The  Nation  reaches  its  hand  into  the  Desert, 

The  wasting  floods  stand  back,   the  streams  obey  their 

master,  and  the  stricken  forests  spring  to  life  again 

upon  the  forsaken  mountains  I 

The  Nation  reaches  its  hand  into  the  Desert. 

The  barred  doors  of  the  sleeping  empire  are   flung  wide 

open  to  the  eager  and  the  willing,  that  they  may 

enter  in  and  claim  their  heritage  ! 

The  Nation  reaches  its  hand  into  the  Desert. 

That  which  lay  beyond  the  grasp  of  the  Individual  yields 

to  the  hand  of  Associated  Man.    Great  is  the 

Achievement, — greater  the  Prophecy  I 


FOREWORD 

In  the  summer  of  1899,  on  a  remote  ranch  in  the 
desert  country  of  Northeastern  California,  twelve  miles 
from  the  nearest  house  ("  and  no  one  living  there,''  as 
my  wife  caustically  remarked)  I  put  the  finishing 
touches  to  the  first  edition  of  this  book.  Now,  six  years 
to  a  day,  in  my  library  at  San  Diego,  with  its  seaward 
gable  commanding  a  view  of  a  populous  town  and  a  wide 
landscape  of  bay,  ocean,  mountains,  islands,  and  the  bold 
promontory  of  Point  Loma,  I  finish  my  revision  of  a  new 
and  enlarged  edition  which  brings  the  story  of  Arid 
America  down  to  date. 

There  is  a  curious  coincidence  between  the  changed 
scene  and  conditions  of  my  work  at  these  two  periods 
and  the  change  in  the  fortunes  of  the  Cause  with  which 
I  deal.  The  irrigation  movement  of  1899  was  compara- 
tively remote  from  the  great  heart  of  the  Nation,  domi- 
ciled in  distant  deserts,  a  long  way  from  "the  nearest 
house"  (and  almost  "nobody  lived  there,"  too),  while 
the  irrigation  movement  of  1905  is  planted  in  the  heart 
of  populous  towns  and  intimately  related  to  the  com- 
merce of  the  world. 

Six  years  ago  national  irrigation  was  a  dream ;  to-day, 
the  dream  has  come  true.  Where  the  subject  interested 
one  m-an  at  the  time  the  book  was  first  written,  it  prob- 
ably interests  at  least  a  thousand  men  at  the  time  when  it 
is  re-written. 

xi 


FOKEWORD 

The  green  fruit  has  ripened  on  the  bough  of  time  in 
the  sunshine  of  events.  In  the  name  of  all  my  comrades, 
living  and  dead,  I  thank  God  that  this  is  so !  And  yet  it 
is  those  who  have  lived  nearest  to  this  growth  of  institu- 
tions who  realize  most  keenly  that  we  have  but  crossed 
the  threshold  of  our  new  epoch.  There  is  a  vast  work 
for  us  yet  to  do,  there  will  be  a  vast  work  for  us  to  pass 
on  to  our  sons,  and  for  our  sons  to  pass  on  to  their  sons. 
The  inspiring  thing  is  that  a  point  has  been  reached 
when  the  real  builders  of  the  world — ^the  men  who  clear 
the  brush,  level  the  land,  plow,  plant,  cultivate,  and 
reap — can  help  in  a  practical  way,  because  their  speeches 
and  books  and  proclamations  are  written  on  the  face  of 
the  imperishable  earth. 

We  are  ready  for  the  homeseeker.  The  fate  of  our 
cause  is  in  his  hands.  If  he  fail,  all  the  labor  of  the  years 
comes  to  naught  and  the  great  hope  dies  in  the  morning 
of  its  promise.  But  if  he  succeed,  no  imagination  can  set 
bounds  to  the  achievement  upon  which  we  have  entered 
nor  picture  the  civilization  which  will  rise  in  the  waste 
places  of  the  West. 

"  Arid  America !  "  exclaimed  Joaquin  Miller,  "  we 
have  watered  it  with  our  tears !  '^  And  so  we  have. 
Now  we  are  to  build  it  in  toil,  in  pain,  in  patience,  hum- 
bling ourselves  in  the  dust  of  failure,  yet  moving  ever 
forward  in  that  pathway  of  co-operation  and  brother- 
hood of  which  the  Newlands  Irrigation  Law  is  the  most 
shining  guidepost  thus  far  erected  by  the  genius  of  our 
statesmanship. 

This  book  is  for  all  optimistic  Americans,  but  especi- 
ally, it  is  for  those  who  have  the  courage  of  their  optim- 


FOREWORD 

ism — for  the  homeseekers  who,  under  the  leadership  of 
the  paternal  Nation,  are  to  grapple  with  the  desert,  trans- 
late its  gray  barrenness  into  green  fields  and  gardens, 
banish  its  silence  with  the  laughter  of  children.  This  is 
the  breed  of  men  who  make  the  Republic  possible,  who 
keep  the  lamp  of  faith  burning  through  the  night  of  cor- 
rupt commercialism,  and  who  bear  the  Ark  of  the  Cove- 
nant to  the  Promised  Land. 

In  the  following  pages  I  have  endeavored  to  show  the 
relation  between  the  earliest  settlers  in  America  and  the 
new  army  which  is  now  moving  toward  our  Western 
lands;  the  peculiar  environment  of  the  arid  region  and 
the  influence  which  it  will  exert  on  its  civilization;  the 
lessons  to  be  learned  from  the  more  notable  of  the  early 
pioneer  settlements  in  Colorado,  Utah,  and  California; 
the  natural  advantages  and  present  development  of  the 
great  States  and  Territories  between  the  Missouri  River 
and  the  Pacific  Ocean;  the  beginning,  progress,  and 
triumph  of  the  national  irrigation  movement;  the  work 
of  the  remarkable  corps  of  young  men  organized  in  the 
United  States  Reclamation  Service;  and,  finally,  the 
spirit  of  what  is  being  done  by  the  pari;nership  of  God 
and  mankind  in  finishing  one  important  comer  of  the 
world. 

In  another  work,  published  almost  simultaneously  with 
this,  I  deal  with  some  of  the  things  which  ought  to  be 
done  to  enable  the  Nation  to  utilize  the  surplus  energies 
of  our  growing  national  family.  There  is  a  wide  and 
inviting  field  for  constructive  statesmanship  to  cultivate 
before  we  can  hope  to  proceed  in  the  best  way  with  the 
building  of  the  Unfinished  Republic.    But  something  has 


FOREWORD 

already  been  done,  and  it  is  that  which  is  the  subject  of 
the  present  volume. 

I  hope  the  book  will  be  of  value  to  several  different 
kinds  of  people — to  the  investor,  the  tourist,  the  eco- 
nomist, the  legislator,  the  reader  of  history  and  travel, 
and  those  interested  in  American  resources  and  institu- 
tions generally — but  most  of  all  I  hope  it  will  be  of  some 
practical  use  to  the  men  and  women  who  are  looking  for 
honjes  under  the  blue  sky  of  the  West. 

W.  E.  S. 
San  Dieoo,  California. 


INTRODUCTION 


ON  GOING  WEST,  YOUNG  MAN 

Many  persons  ask  if  I  advise  them  to  go  West.  I  in- 
variably reply  that  it  depends  upon  their  temperament. 
For  there  is  a  Western  temperament,  and  there  is  an 
Eastern  temperament.  The  person  who  possesses  the 
former  will  never  be  really  happy  in  the  East ;  the  person 
who  possesses  the  latter  will  never  be  happy  in  the  West. 

The  man  with  the  Western  temperament  loves  the  un- 
built house  and  the  virgin  soil — the  vast  resources  await- 
ing the  conquest  of  human  genius  and  human  labor.  He 
wants  to  live  in  a  land  where  things  are  being  done,  and 
where  they  are  to  be  done  yet  more  in  the  future.  He 
wants  to  have  a  part  in  doing  them, —  wants  to  build  the 
house,  plant  the  ivy,  turn  rivers  out  of  their  courses, 
drive  the  desert  back  inch  by  inch,  carry  railroads 
through  unheard-of  mountain  passes,  write  constitutions, 
found  cities  and  states. 

The  man  with  the  Eastern  temperament  prefers  his 
civilization  ready-made.  He  loves  the  old  home,  the  old 
familiar  names  and  streets,  the  old  associations.  He 
loves  the  ivy,  too,  but  wants  to  know  that  it  was  planted 
by  his  great-grandfather.  He  wants  to  feel  that  cities 
and  states  were  founded,  and  constitutions  written,  by 


INTRODUCTION 

men  who  were  much  wiser  than  he,  because  they  lived 
and  died  so  many  generations  ago.  When  this  man  gets 
West  he  is  homesick.  But  his  brother  of  the  Western 
temperament  works  with  fierce  joy.  He  is  worth  ten 
times  as  much  to  himself  and  to  society  as  he  would  have 
been  if  he  had  always  remained  on  his  native  heath. 

It  is  my  own  feeling  (for  one  is  ruled,  after  all,  by 
one's  inherited  prejudices  and  pride  of  home)  that  the 
happiest  of  all  fates  is  to  be  bom  in  Massachusetts  and  to 
live  in  California !  This  is  the  feeling  common  to  West- 
em  men  of  Eastern  antecedents.  They  vary  the  locali- 
ties to  suit  their  birthplace  and  present  residence,  but  the 
spirit  of  the  observation  remains  intact.  They  are  by  no 
means  ashamed  of  the  old  home.  On  the  contrary,  they 
love  and  revere  it  and  to  revisit  it  is  a  delightful  experi- 
ence. But  it  no  longer  satisfies  their  souls,  while  to  stay 
there  long  is  to  hunger  for  the  sight  of  the  great,  rugged 
mountains,  for  the  smell  of  the  desert,  for  the  touch  of 
the  unfailing  sunshine. 

If  you  feel  like  that,  young  man,  go  West !  The  Un- 
finished Republic  is  calling  to  you.  By  all  means  an- 
swer, "  Here  am  I !  "  You  may  not  be  successful  in  a 
pecuniary  way,  yet  you  will  never  regret  the  move.  And 
if  you  yield  to  the  temptation  to  go  "  back  East,"  you  will 
never  again  be  quite  satisfied.  You  will  think  of  the 
wide  landscapes  and  of  the  freedom  of  which  they  are  the 
sign  and  symbol,  and  your  heart  will  quickly  traverse 
the  hills  and  prairies,  to  nestle  in  the  shadows  of  the 
Rockies  or  the  Sierras  and  abide  forever.  If  it  does  not, 
then  your  temperament  is  not  Western,  after  all,  and  you 
should  have  lived  and  died  in  the  land  of  your  ancestors. 


INTRODUCTION 

A  word  to  the  married  man:  you  may  have  the  West- 
em  temperament,  but  how  about  your  wife?  Her  feel- 
ings are  entitled  to  consideration,  and  the  time  to  think 
of  them  is  before  you  detach  yourself  from  the  old  home 
and  its  associations.  I  remember  that  when  I  was  seek- 
ing the  assistance  of  Edward  Everett  Hale  in  organizing 
a  new  Plymouth,  ten  years  ago,  the  dear  old  man  turned 
to  his  wife  and  said,  with  a  twinkle  in  his  eye,  "  Mother, 
I  believe  I  will  go  out  to  Idaho  and  grow  up  with  the 
country.''  She  replied,  "  No,  you  will  stay  right  here." 
And,  indeed,  his  own  rebuke  of  the  jest  was  engraved 
upon  the  stone  above  his  fireplace : 

"  Old  wood  to  burn,  old  books  to  read,  old  friends  to 
keep."  Dr.  Hale  is  one  of  the  rare  souls  who  can  pre- 
serve a  thoroughly  Western  temperament  while  living  in 
an  Eastern  environment.  His  influence  and  fame  long 
since  went  West  and  grew  up  with  the  country. 

But  to  return  to  the  married  man  who  thinks  of  mov- 
ing to  improve  his  condition  in  life.  I  hope  he  will  con- 
sult the  wishes  of  his  **  better  half."  It  always  seemed  to 
me  that  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  were  glorified  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  Pilgrim  Mothers,  and  I  have  often  wondered 
how  the  Mothers  felt  as  they  looked  upon  the  receding 
shores  of  Old  England.  The  true  Western  man  has  no 
need  to  ask  how  the  Fathers  felt,  for  he  is  moved  by  the 
same  sense  of  forefatherhood  which  nerved  the  arms  of 
the  Pilgrims  when  they  went  forth  to  fell  the  forests  and 
make  clearings  for  their  homes. 

I  venture  to  say  that  the  average  man  likes  the  West. 
The  newness,  the  bigness,  the  essential  masculinity  of 
the  sparsely-peopled  wilderness,  and  of  the  tasks  to  which 


INTKODUCTION 

it  invites  him,  appeal  to  his  pride  and  strength  and  kindle 
his  imagination.  In  a  way,  he  is  born  again.  He  turns 
over  a  new  page  in  his  life  history.  He  does  not  intend' 
to  repeat  the  old  mistakes,  and  he  starts  with  a  fund  of 
knowledge  which  he  did  not  have  when  he  began  his 
earlier  career.  He  realizes  that  his  relation  to  the 
natural  resources  of  the  region  is  like  that  enjoyed  by 
the  men  of  a  century  ago  in  the  place  whence  he  came. 
They  planted  hamlets  which  grew  into  cities  and  thereby 
enriched  their  descendants;  he  will  do  the  same.  His 
heart  swells  as  he  thinks  of  his  own  and  his  children's 
future. 

But  if  this  is  the  feeling  of  the  average  man  who  goes 
West,  it  is  not  necessarily  shared  by  the  average  woman. 
She  is  more  sensitive  to  her  surroundings.  It  may  be 
that  she  has  less  imagination — ^that  she  cannot  see  the 
fields  and  towns  which  are  to  be,  through  the  clouds  of 
dust  that  come  swirling  from  the  treeless  land.  Or  it  may 
be — and  this  is  more  likely — that  she  gets  the  heavier 
end  of  the  burdens  peculiar  to  the  pioneer.  ''  It  is  easier 
for  a  man  to  get  a  living  in  the  West,  than  in  the  East," 
one  lady  said  to  me,  "  but  women  have  to  scratch  harder 
here  than  they  do  back  home.''  It  is  not  difficult  to  un- 
derstand how  this  may  be  true.  The  man  sees  his  oppor- 
tunity in  the  very  fact  that  he  has  come  to  a  rich  region 
which  is  undeveloped,  so  that  he  can  skim  the  cream  of 
its  advantages;  but  the  lack  of  its  development  deprives 
the  woman  of  many  of  the  conveniences  which  she  form- 
erly knew.  It  is  undeniable  that  the  household  duties 
falling  to  the  woman's  lot,  whether  she  live  in  the  coun- 
try or  the  town,  are  lightened  as  civilization  increases. 


INTRODUCTION 

Of  course,  the  hardships  of  pioneering  nowadays  are 
not  like  those  of  earlier  generations,  yet  it  would  be  quite 
misleading  to  say  that  the  women  who  come  to  make 
homes  in  the  new  settlements  of  the  West  can  hope  to 
enjoy  all  the  advantages  to  which  they  were  accustomed 
in  their  Eastern  lives. 

It  is  in  its  natural  resources  that  the  West  excels,  not 
in  its  artificial  refinements,  and  the  lack  of  the  latter 
is  much  more  keenly  felt  by  women  than  by  men.  Nor 
is  this  deficiency  seen  only  in  connection  with  house- 
hold work.  It  is  felt  on  the  social  side  of  life.  It  is  not 
that  organized  society  is  so  different,  though  naturally 
the  church,  the  school,  the  facilities  for  shopping,  and 
all  that  attaches  to  these  interests,  are  in  a  more  primi- 
tive state  in  a  new  country  than  in  an  old  one;  but  it 
is  the  fact  that  the  settler  has  come  to  a  neighborhood 
not  only  deficient  in  numbers  and  peopled  with  stran- 
gers, but  without  traditions.  I  have  heard  women  say, 
*'  There  is  nothing  to  talk  about,  and  nobody  to  talk  to 
if  there  were."  This  is  by  no  means  literally  true,  yet 
it  conveys  an  inkling  of  the  truth. 

It  is  only  another  way  of  saying  that  the  old  friends 
and  old  associations  mean  more  to  women  than  to  men, 
or  that  men  are  quicker  to  make  new  friends  and  find 
enjoyment  in  new  associations  than  are  their  wives  and 
daughters.  Perhaps  the  reader  can  now  understand 
why  men  take  more  kindly  to  the  West  than  do  their 
women-folk,  or,  at  least,  why  the  latter  require  more 
time  to  grow  into  their  new  environment. 

It  would  be  quite  misleading  to  leave  the  impression 
that  women  never  like  the  wilderness.     As  a  matter  of 

xiz 


INTRODUCTION 

fact,  many  of  them  adore  it  and  would  not  willingly 
exchange  it  for  the  life  of  large  cities  or  older  agricul- 
tural communities.  As  I  write,  I  hear  of  a  young  lady 
who  has  enjoyed  the  advantages  of  Boston  and  New 
York,  of  San  Francisco  and  Los  Angeles,  but  who  resists 
the  appeals  of  her  parents  to  come  out  of  the  desert 
wild  where  she  went  for  a  brief  vacation,  already  length- 
ened to  months,  and  where  she  has  previously  spent 
weeks  which  she  enthusiastically  describes  as  "the  only 
time  I  ever  really  lived."    She  writes: 

"  When  I  am  in  the  city,  my  happiness  depends  on  people 
and  society,  but  out  here  in  the  deserts  and  mountains  the 
country  itself  is  satisfying.  Perhaps  you  don't  understand  what 
I  mean,  but  I  do." 

I  understand  precisely  what  she  means,  and  so  do  all 
men  and  women  who  turn  their  faces  toward  the  clean, 
beautiful,  unpeopled  wilderness  with  the  thrill  of  a 
lover's  heart. 

In  what  has  been  said  I  have  been  thinking  chiefly 
of  the  millions  who  will  come  to  conquer  the  waste  places 
in  real  pioneer  fashion,  making  settlements  where  there 
is  now  nothing  but  scattered  ranches  or  great  tracts  of 
sage-brush  land.  These  observations  by  no  means  apply  to 
life  in  the  larger  towns  or  even  in  the  older  agricultural 
communities.  The  town  life  of  the  West  is  up  to  date; 
the  country  life,  where  resources  have  been  quite  thor- 
oughly developed,  not  only  up  to  date,  but  far  ahead 
of  the  time  when  compared  with  Eastern  standards. 
Take  such  communities  as  Riverside  and  Redlands,  in 
Southern  California,  for  example,  and  you  find  social 
advantages  which  cannot  be  matched  anywhere  else  in 

XX 


INTEODUCTION 

the  world.  In  later  pages  we  shall  see  what  these  ad- 
vantages are  and  how  they  were  attained. 

But  the  man  who  is  going  West  must  remember  that 
he  cannot  begin  where  other  people  ended.  That  is  to 
say,  he  cannot  have  the  benefits  of  pioneering  without 
its  drawbacks.  If  he  wants  a  ready-made  civilization, 
he  must  pay  the  price.  The  men  who  went  to  Riverside 
a  generation  ago,  or  to  Redlands  fifteen  years  ago,  were  in 
at  the  birth  of  things.  They  planted  the  seed,  bore  the 
heat  and  burden  of  the  day,  and  reaped  the  reward. 
You  may  be  able  to  buy  one  of  their  perfect  homes  and 
orchards,  and  enter  immediately  into  the  enjoyment  of 
their  social  advantages,  but  you  must  pay  a  snug  little 
fortune  for  the  privilege.  The  alternative  is  to  begin 
where  they  began  and  grind  your  grist  in  patience.  No 
way  has  been  discovered  by  which  a  man  can  get  some- 
thing for  nothing,  even  in  the  glorious  West.  But  for 
the  man  who  is  not  doing  as  well  as  he  ought  in  the 
East,  the  New  West  is  the  land  of  opportunity. 

We  shall  see  in  subsequent  pages  the  vast  margin  of 
undeveloped  resources  in  all  our  Western  States  and 
Territories,  and  how  these  resources  call  loudly  for  men 
and  capital  to  come  and  make  use  of  them.  We  shall  also 
see  how  the  Nation  itself  is  beginning  to  do  certain 
things  vital  to  the  growth  of  civilization,  yet  far  beyond 
the  reach  of  individual  enterprise,  and  how  this  public 
policy  sets  a  new  star  of  hope  in  the  sky  of  our  common 
humanity.  Just  here  we  are  dealing  with  individual  op- 
portunities, and  the  most  significant  of  these  consists  in 
the  fact  that  far  more  may  he  done  mth  small  capital  in 
the  West  than  in  the  East, 


INTRODUCTION 

To  begin  with,  land  is  cheaper,  though  richer  and  more 
productive.  This  is  the  reason  that  many  shrewd  farm- 
ers are  selling  their  property  in  the  Middle  States  and 
beginning  life  anew  between  the  Rockies  and  the  Sierras. 
Of  the  advantages  arising  from  irrigation  the  reader  will 
get  his  fill  if  he  persists  to  the  end  of  my  story.  For  the 
present  let  it  be  said  in  a  word  that  the  man  who 
wants  to  win  an  independence  from  the  soil  will  ac- 
complish more  with  a  given  investment  of  capital,  energy, 
and  time  in  the  Irrigated  West  than  anywhere  else  in 
the  world.  He  should  choose  his  precise  location  wisely 
and  it  is  the  object  of  this  book  to  assist  him  in  doing 
so;  but,  in  a  general  way,  his  true  policy  is  to  enlist  in 
the  peaceful  army  which  is  engaged  in  the  conquest  of 
Arid  America. 

What  has  been  said  of  land  is  true  of  all  other  busi- 
ness opportunities.  The  dollar  will  go  farther  in  any 
direction  in  the  undeveloped  West  than  in  the  older  sec- 
tions of  the  country.  What  can  a  man  do  with,  say, 
twenty-five  thousand  dollars,  in  Boston,  New  York, 
Chicago,  or  even  in  Eastern  cities  of  the  second  or  third 
rank?  Can  he  compete  with  the  department  stores,  the 
great  factories,  or  the  consolidated  banks? 

In  the  Far  West,  one  man  possessing  this  sum,  or  a 
number  of  men  having  it  among  them,  may  readily  be- 
come a  considerable  financial  power.  They  can  even 
start  a  national  bank,  and  they  will  be  surprised  to  find 
how  the  deposits  fiow  in  from  a  wide  range  of  sparsely 
settled  country,  and  surprised  again  to  learn  with  what 
security  and  profit  they  can  loan  the  capital  at  their 
disposal.     Many  experienced  bankers  have  been  turned 

xxii 


INTRODUCTION 

out  of  comfortable  berths  by  bank  consolidations  in 
New  England  and  elsewhere  during  the  past  few  years. 
Nearly  all  of  them  have  moderate  means  or  an  ac- 
quaintance and  standing  which  would  enable  them  to 
command  a  reasonable  working  capital.  Instead  of  being 
embittered  by  the  change  which  has  overtaken  them, 
they  ought  to  be  inspired  by  the  field  of  usefulness  it 
opens  to  them.  The  New  West  yearns  for  such  men — for 
their  capital,  their  knowledge,  their  training,  their  proved 
integrity.  It  will  give  them  a  chance  to  become  leaders 
where  they  were  formerly  but  followers. 

The  same  is  true  of  merchants  and,  in  less  degree,  of 
manufacturers.  Business  is  done  on  a  smaller  scale; 
the  country  is  growing  enormously,  and  this  growth  will 
continue  indefinitely;  new  towns  and  agricultural  dis- 
tricts are  springing  up  where  silence  and  desolation  have 
reigned  for  ages;  the  region  is  measurably  free  from 
domination  by  great  capitalists.  Doubtless  the  time  will 
come  when  the  same  economic  forces  which  closed  most 
of  the  commercial  avenues  to  small  capital  in  the  East 
will  produce  the  same  result  in  the  West,  but  it  has  not 
come  yet.  There  is  probably  another  generation  of  pros- 
perity for  enterprising  men  who  follow  the  tide  of  set- 
tlement to  the  Western  valleys  and  mountains. 

In  dwelling  upon  this  thought  I  am  reminded  of  a 
friend  who  inherited  a  few  thousand  dollars  from  his 
father,  went  West,  and  became  a  successful  lumber  mer- 
chant. When  I  last  met  him  he  was  congratulating  him- 
self upon  how  much  he  had  done  with  his  small  patri- 
mony, because  he  had  come  West  while  it  was  yet  in  its 
day  of  small  things.    ''  I  thank  God  I  was  bom  in  New 

xxiii 


INTRODUCTION 

England/'  he  said  in  a  fine  burst  of  pride,  and  then, 
with  a  smile  of  satisfaction,  he  added,  "  and  I  thank  God 
I  had  sense  enough  to  get  up  and  leave  it ! "  In  this 
connection,  it  is  perhaps  worth  while  to  remark  that 
New  England  is  no  longer  a  mere  geographical  term.  It 
is  a  certain  spirit  of  civic  pride  and  individual  enterprise. 
In  this  sense.  New  England  is  very  much  in  evidence  in 
the  Far  West.  Its  sons  go  forth  to  conquer  the  waste 
places.  They  plant  their  traditions,  and  ?'aise  a  crop  of 
institutions. 

A  word  should  be  said  to  those  who  fear  that  their 
children  will  not  have  educational  advantages  in  the 
West.  The  fear  is  quite  groundless,  for  every  Western 
State  and  Territory  is  lavish  in  its  expenditure  for  ed- 
ucation. Their  schools  are  magnificently  endowed  with 
the  Nation's  gift  of  public  land,  and  the  popular  pride 
in  their  development  is  boundless.  Even  the  drawbacks 
of  attending  school  in  country  districts  are,  when  rightly 
viewed,  seen  to  be  more  advantageous  than  otherwise. 
They  make  the  fibre  of  strong  men  and  women,  for  they 
drive  the  children  into  the  open  air,  generally  on  horse- 
back. If  you  are  inclined  to  be  pessimistic  about  the 
future  of  the  Republic,  just  watch  a  cavalcade  of  West- 
ern boys  and  girls  as  they  gallop  to  school  through  sun- 
shine or  rain,  and  you  will  find  your  faith  renewed. 
These  strong-limbed,  sun-browned,  self-reliant  young- 
sters are  the  citizens  of  the  future.  You  need  not  fear 
that  they  will  fail  us  in  time  of  need. 

But  it  is  not  only  in  the  common  schools  that  the 
West  is  strong.  It  is  strong  in  its  colleges  and  universi- 
ties, and  stronger  yet  in  the  men  who  stand  at  the  head 

xxiv 


INTRODUCTION 

of  them.  They  are  the  men  of  the  Forward  Look.  They 
are  clearing  the  intellectual  forests,  rooting  up  the  social 
sage-brush,  irrigating  the  arid  wastes  of  politics  and 
economics.  Ah,  what  a  harvest  they  are  preparing  for 
the  future — the  David  Starr  Jordans,  the  Benjamin  Ide 
Wheelers,  the  George  A.  Gateses,  and  the  rest  of  the  hig- 
brained,  big-hearted  brood  who  are  training  the  rising 
generation  in  the  bright  sunshine  of  the  Pacific  Coast ! 

A  new  era  is  dawning  on  the  Western  half  of  the 
continent.  The  rough  edges  of  pioneer  life  have  worn 
off,  and  speculation  is  giving  place  to  sober  industry. 
The  national  irrigation  policy  lends  an  element  of  cer- 
tainty, of  stability,  which  was  sadly  lacking  in  the 
past.  When  Uncle  Sam  puts  his  hand  to  a  task,  we 
know  it  will  be  done.  Not  even  the  hysteria  of  hard 
times  can  frighten  him  away  from  the  work.  When  he 
waves  his  hand  toward  the  deseri;  and  says,  **  Let  there 
he  water!'*  we  know  that  the  stream  will  obey  his  com- 
mand. We  know  more  than  that — know  when  the  water 
will  come,  how  much  land  will  be  reclaimed,  how  many 
homes  will  be  builded.  We  can  even  calculate  with 
precision  how  many  towns  will  spring  up  and  where 
they  will  be,  and  the  railroad  actuary  can  figure  out 
the  traffic  of  the  future. 

There  never  was  such  a  time  as  now  for  the  young 
man  to  go  West  and  grow  up  with  the  country.  It  is 
no  longer  a  wild  adventure,  but  the  sane  planning  of 
a  career.  The  private  capitalist,  even  after  we  have 
wooed  and  won  him,  may  change  his  mind,  or  lose  his 
fortune,  or  death  may  arrest  him  and  wreck  a  thousand 
hopes.     But  the  public   capitalist  is   dependable.     He 


INTRODUCTION" 

does  not  change  his  mind,  or  lose  his  fortune,  and  he 
lives  on  with  the  generations.  This  capitalist  has  been 
enlisted — ^the  United  States  of  America,  Unlimited! 

Go  West,  young  man!  That  is,  if  you  are  the  right 
young  man,  with  the  Western  temperament,  and — ^if  your 
wife  is  willing! 


THE   CONQUEST  OF    ARID  AMERICA 


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«     1 


THE   CONQUEST  OF   ARID  AMERICA 


part  riret 
COLONIAL  EXPANSION  AT  HOME 

"  In  1850  she  [the  United  States]  passed  Austria.  In  1860  it  was 
her  motherland  to  whom  she  held  out  her  hand  lovingly  as  she 
swept  by.  In  1870  she  overtook  and  passed  France.  In  1880  she 
had  outstripped  the  German  Empire  ;  and  now,  in  1890,  she  is  left 
without  a  competitor  to  contend  with  except  giant  Russia.  All  the 
others  she  has  left  behind.  Another  decade,  and  the  sound  of  the 
rushing  Republic  close  behind  will  astonish  even  Russia,  with  its 
eighty-six  millions  in  Europe.  Yet  another  decade,  and  it,  too, 
like  all  the  rest,  will  fall  behind  to  watch  for  a  time  the  new  nation 
in  advance,  until  it  forges  so  far  forward  as  to  pass  beyond  her  ken, 
when  five  hundred  millions,  every  one  an  American,  and  all  boast- 
ing a  common  citizenship,  will  dominate  the  world — for  the  world's 
good." — Andrew  Caknkgle,  Triumphant  Democracy. 


CHAPTER  I 
GREATNESS  BY  CONTINENTAL  CONQUEST 

The  economic  greatness  of  the  United  States  is  the 
fruit  of  a  policy  of  peaceful  conquest  over  the  resources 
of  a  virgin  continent.  Without  this  great  item  of  raw 
material,  the  finished  product  which  the  world  acknowl- 
edges in  the  industrial  America  of  to-day  would  have 
been  impossible. 

The  true  career  of  the  American  people  as  a  race  of 
empire-builders  dates  not  from  the  founding  of  James- 
town, New  Amsterdam,  and  Plymouth,  but  from  the 
surrender  of  Cornwallis  at  Yorktown  and  the  subsequent 
inauguration  of  George  Washington  as  the  first  President 
of  the  United  States.  The  early  settlers  were  merely 
European  sentinels  standing  guard  over  a  treasure  of 
continental  magnitude  which  they  neither  compre- 
hended nor  appreciated.  The  tobacco-raisers  of  Vir- 
ginia, the  fur-traders  of  New  York,  and  the  religious 
enthusiasts  of  New  England  had  no  conception  of  a 
national  destiny  or  mission.  They  looked  backward  to 
the  civilization  whence  they  had  come,  rather  than  for- 
ward to  the  conquest  and  subjugation  of  the  mightier 
empire  on  whose  eastern  shores  they  had  set  their  reluc- 
tant feet. 

Only  at  the  close  of  the  successful  war  for  indepen- 

3 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

dence  did  the  world  begin  to  realize  that  the  American 
was  to  be  the  master  of  the  new  continent  for  all  time, 
and  that  his  rule  must  move  westward  as  naturally  and 
inevitably  as  the  sun  in  its  course.  Only  when  the  new 
government,  hewn  out  with  the  sword  and  cemented 
with  the  blood  of  its  citizens,  had  been  finally  and  firmly 
established,  did  the  heterogeneous  elements  in  the 
sparsely  settled  original  States  crystallize  into  a  national 
spirit  and  a  national  character.  From  that  hour  the 
material  development  of  the  New  World  began  in  earnest. 
The  people  labored  as  with  the  vim  and  courage  of  him 
who  works  for  himself.  Men  began  to  dream  of  an 
America  which  should  be  richer  and  more  populous  and 
powerful  than  even  Europe. 

The  war  was  over — the  war  was  begun  !  England  had 
been  shaken  off  by  force  of  arms,  and  the  other  Euro- 
pean ties  would  be  loosed  by  the  arts  of  diplomacy ;  but 
it  remained  to  wage  war  on  the  forest,  the  plain,  the 
desert,  and  the  mountain,  and  to  create  a  better  civil- 
ization than  the  world  had  seen.  What  millions  of  men 
and  billions  of  dollars  were  employed  and  rewarded  in 
the  process — what  workshops,  and  railroads,  and  farming 
districts  were  created  in  the  wilderness — what  cities, 
with  swarming  thousands  of  inhabitants,  with  homes 
and  colleges  and  hospitals,  were  erected  in  the  midst  of 
the  primeval  silence — what  States  were  carved  from  the 
woods  and  prairies — what  unexpected  commerce,  borne 
in  undreamed-of  steamships,  was  sent  to  whiten  the  un- 
explored inland  seas ! 

It  is  in  the  answer  to  these  questions  rather  than  in 
the  poet's  paean  to  democracy  that  the  true  explanation 
of  the  economic  progress  of  the  nation  will  be  found. 

4 


CONTINENTAL    CONQUEST 

It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  the  fact  that  the  United 
States  was  heralded  throughout  the  world  as  a  "free 
country''  attracted  millions  of  immigrants,  nor  that 
popular  government  and  complete  immunity  from  the 
demands  of  royal  tribute  left  enterprise  unhampered  to 
a  degree  hitherto  unknown.  But  a  vast  commerce  can 
no  more  find  sustenance  solely  in  the  written  constitu- 
tion of  a  country  than  a  starving  prospector  in  the 
mountains  can  satisfy  his  appetite  with  scenery. 

It  seems  worth  while  to  lay  strong  emphasis  upon  this 
point,  because  the  somewhat  general  acceptance  of  the 
notion  that  America  is  the  product  of  its  institutions, 
rather  than  that  its  institutions  are  the  product  of 
America,  has  obscured  the  causes  of  past  prosperity  and 
belittled  the  importance  of  our  undeveloped  resources. 
Not  until  this  fact  is  understood  and  acknowledged 
is  it  possible  to  comprehend,  even  vaguely,  the  incal- 
culable importance  of  the  undeveloped  regions  in  the 
western  half  of  the  United  States. 

At  the  close  of  the  Revolution  the  United  States  con- 
sisted of  a  fringe  of  settlements  mostly  confined  to  the 
Atlantic  coast  and  the  banks  of  important  rivers  on  the 
eastern  slope  of  the  Alleghanies.  Nominally,  the  nation- 
al domain  extended  westward  to  the  Mississippi  river, 
but  practically  there  was  no  development  beyond  the 
thirteen  original  States.  Even  there  the  natural  resour- 
ces of  the  country  had  scarcely  been  touched.  Boston 
had  a  population  of  about  eighteen  thousand.  New  York 
of  about  thirty  thousand,  Philadelphia  of  about  thirty- 
five  thousand,  Baltimore  of  about  fifteen  thousand. 
Richmond,  Charleston,  and  Savannah,  though  of  some 
importance  politically,  were  mere  straggling  hamlets. 

5 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

Detroit,  St.  Louis,  and  New  Orleans  were  French  out- 
posts in  the  wilderness.  Buffalo,  Cincinnati,  Cleveland, 
and  Chicago ;  Omaha,  Kansas  City,  Denver,  Salt  Lake, 
and  San  Francisco — these  and  scores  of  other  cities  now 
populous  and  powerful — were  hidden  in  the  womb  of 
time.  Of  the  country  between  the  Alleghanies  and  the 
Mississippi  far  less  was  known  than  the  world  now  knows 
of  Africa.  The  vast  domain  lying  between  the  Father 
of  Waters  and  the  Pacific  Ocean  was  neither  as  well  ex- 
plored nor  as  perfectly  comprehended  as  the  Arctic 
region  is  to-day. 

When  the  men  of  the  new  Republic  turned  their  backs 
on  the  Old  World,  in  the  double  sense  of  politics  and  in- 
dustry, and  faced  the  continental  opportunity  which 
awaited  them,  they  entered  upon  the  fiercest  war  of  con- 
quest in  all  history.  And  the  spoils  of  that  war  were  to 
be  in  proportion  to  the  magnificence  of  the  task. 

The  first  effort  at  the  subjugation  of  the  wilderness 
was  directed  to  the  fields  and  the  streams.  The  forest 
clearings  were  extended  that  agriculture  might  find  room 
for  expansion.  The  trees  felled  in  the  process  were  float- 
ed in  the  rivers  to  saw-mills  driven  by  the  current.  The 
logs,  transformed  to  lumber,  supplied  the  material  for 
millions  of  comfortable  homes.  In  the  mean  time,  the 
new  farms  fed  the  growing  population  of  the  towns, 
while  a  myriad  of  workshops,  improved  by  inventions  of 
which  a  robust  necessity  was  the  prolific  mother,  con- 
sumed and  manufactured  the  textile  materials  from  field 
and  pasture. 

The  step  from  the  crude  employments  of  the  frontier 
to  the  manifold  occupations  of  a  modern  industrial  life 
was  easy  and  natural.     Fostered  by  a  generous  policy  of 

6 


CONTINENTAL    CONQUEST 

protection,  and  blessed  by  long  years  of  peace,  the  work 
of  development  went  on  from  generation  to  generation. 
In  New  England  the  raw  material  on  which  the  workmen 
labored  in  fashioning  a  civilization  was  poorer  than  else- 
where. And  yet  it  was  on  that  sterile  soil,  in  the  midst 
of  those  rocks  and  hills,  that  industrial  pre-eminence  was 
first  to  be  achieved.  A  citizen  of  Massachusetts  once 
made  the  just  boast  that  **  not  one  drop  of  water  flows 
from  our  hills  to  the  sea  until  its  power  has  been  three 
times  multiplied  by  the  mill  wheels."  Every  stream  was 
lined  with  factories,  nearly  every  town  had  its  peculiar 
industries  and  its  growing  crowds  of  skilled  laborers, 
supporting  the  stores  and  shops  with  their  trade,  and 
filling  the  schools  with  their  children. 

Not  only  in  New  England,  which  owed  its  serious  en- 
ergy to  the  example  and  character  of  its  founders,  and 
its  fierce  industrial  enthusiasm  to  a  system  of  free  labor, 
but  equally  in  New  York,  in  New  Jersey,  in  Delaware, 
in  Pennsylvania,  and  southward  to  the  Floridian  penin- 
sula, the  army  of  labor  marched  on  with  irresistible  ad- 
vance. It  scaled  the  crests  of  the  Alleghanies  and  opened 
yet  greater  valleys  to  the  energy  of  men.  It  tunnelled 
into  the  earth  and  brought  up  the  hidden  stores  of  coal 
and  iron  ore.  It  tapped  the  subterranean  reservoirs  of 
natural  gas  and  oil. 

With  the  rapid  growth  of  a  many-sided  economic  life 
the  need  of  improved  facilities  for  internal  transportation 
arose  and  grew  yearly  more  urgent.  The  natural  water- 
courses, navigated  by  rafts  and  sailing  craft,  did  not  long 
suffice.  The  army  of  labor  was  set  at  work  in  building 
great  highways  and  digging  canals.  Then  came  the 
steamboat,  and,  finally,  the  railroad  with  its  iron  horse. 

7 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

Thus  it  was  that  the  work  of  taming  the  wilderness 
went  on  with  increasing  fervor.  Thus  it  was  that  thirty- 
two  new  States  were  added  to  the  original  thirteen. 
Thus  it  was  that  the  national  population  was  increased 
fourteen-fold,  and  that  cities  rivalling  the  greatest  urban 
centres  in  the  Old  World,  in  size  and  wealth  and  power, 
were  developed  on  the  site  of  the  colonial  villages  of  the 
early  days.  Thus  it  was  that  the  Republic  was  able  to 
welcome,  and  to  absorb  into  its  apparently  insatiable  in- 
dustrial system,  the  millions  of  immigrants  who  flocked 
to  its  shores. 

During  these  days  of  rapid  material  expansion  over 
new  areas.  Uncle  Sam  was  the  proprietor  of  the  most  gigan- 
tic employment  bureau  on  earth.  He  had  enough  work 
for  his  own  prodigious  family  of  sons,  and  for  the  over- 
flow of  all  the  families  across  the  sea.  He  ojffered  the 
highest  wages  in  the  world-wide  market.  He  distribu- 
ted his  abounding  prosperity  through  all  channels  of 
trade,  all  classes  of  industry,  all  grades  of  society.  He 
made  men  and  communities  rich  first  by  employing 
their  energies  in  the  conversion  of  the  wilderness  into  a 
civilization,  and  paying  them  roundly  for  the  work ; 
then  by  the  rise  in  values,  or  "  unearned  increment,'' 
which  comes  with  population  and  development ;  finally, 
by  the  premium,  or  interest,  upon  capital  thus  acquired. 
All  this  was  the  logical  fruit  of  a  policy  of  continental 
conquest  bravely  undertaken,  magnificently  achieved. 

Behold  the  story  of  national  prosperity  in  the  form  of 
a  few  clear-cut  figures,  divested  of  all  rhetorical  cloth- 
ing ;  In  a  little  more  than  one  hundred  years  the  area  of 
farms  increased  from  sixty-five  thousand  square  miles  to 
over  one  million  square  miles.     The  number  of  persons 

8 


CON^TINENTAL    CONQUEST 

engaged  in  the  agricultural  industry  in  1900  was  10,438,- 
219, — more  than  two  and  one-half  times  the  entire  popu- 
lation in  1790.  In  acres  the  total  amount  of  land 
classed  as  farms  by  the  last  census  was  841,201,546,  of 
which  414,793,191  acres  were  under  actual  cultivation, 
the  rest  being  woodlands.  The  number  of  individual 
farms  was  5,739,657.  The  annual  product  was  worth 
$3,764,177,706.  "In  ten  years,"  says  Mr.  Andrew 
Carnegie,  in  his  inspiring  book.  Triumphant  Democracy, 
"a  territory  larger  than  Britain,  and  almost  equal  in 
extent  to  the  entire  area  of  France  and  Germany,  was 
added  to  the  farm  area  of  America." 

Marvellous  as  this  statement  is,  it  exhibits  but  one 
item  in  the  record  of  continental  conquest  which  con- 
ferred such  phenomenal  prosperity  upon  the  American 
people  in  the  past.  Agriculture  is  the  basis  of  civiliza- 
tion, and  upon  the  foundation  so  quickly  and  thoroughly 
laid,  the  new  nation  hastened  to  erect  the  superstructure 
of  a  complex  industrial  life.  The  existence  of  an  enor- 
mous population  on  the  farms  furnished  a  great  field 
for  manufactures.  This  industry  now  employs  between 
five  and  six  million  workmen,  who  annually  receive  and 
expend  over  two  billion  dollars  in  wages  and  create  an 
annual  product  worth  thirteen  billion  dollars. 

Agriculture  and  manufactures — ^both  finished  prod- 
ucts wrought  by  millions  of  workmen  from  the  raw 
materials  of  the  new  continent — combined  in  demanding 
the  most  extensive  arrangements  for  internal  transporta- 
tion ever  provided  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  The  total 
railroad  mileage  at  the  last  census  was  one  hundred  and 
ninety-four  thousand  three  hundred  miles,  which  is  more 

9 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  ARID  AMEEICA 

than  that  of  all  European  countries  combined.  Of  this 
vast  mileage,  forty-eight  per  cent,  was  built  before 
1880,  thirty-eight  per  cent,  between  1880  and  1890,  and 
fourteen  per  cent,  between  1890  and  1900.  When  it  is 
remembered  that  each  of  these  miles  stands  for  about 
fifty  thousand  dollars  expenditure — ^the  cost  of  construc- 
tion and  equipment — and  that  the  work  employed  an 
army  of  laborers  and  skilled  artisans,  who  in  turn  con- 
sumed great  quantities  of  agricultural  and  manufactured 
products,  it  is  not  difficult  to  realize  that  the  railroad 
development  contributed  largely  to  the  national  pros- 
perity in  the  past.  It  was,  of  course,  the  direct  result  of 
the  great  process  of  material  conquest  which  was 
going  on. 

To  the  same  cause  was  due  the  employment  of  nearly 
five  million  people  in  trade  and  transportation;  of  a 
million  and  a  quarter  in  professional  services;  and  of 
nearly  four  hundred  thousand  in  mining.  The  grand 
result  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  the  national  population 
grew  from  less  than  four  millions  in  1790  to  more  than 
seventy-six  millions  in  1900,  while  the  total  wealth 
mounted  to  the  incomprehensible  sum  of  ninety-four 
billion  dollars. 

Such  are  the  stupendous  results  of  the  labors  of  a  great 
people  applied  to  the  resources  of  a  virgin  continent. 
Other  people  have  possessed  energy  and  genius,  and  two 
of  the  European  nations  have  enjoyed  the  blessings  of 
self-government.  If  republican  institutions  would  alone 
guarantee  such  results  in  the  future,  it  is  hardly  to  be 
imagined  that  the  sternest  monarchy  could  withstand 
the  demand  for  their  adoption.     But  the  transcendent 

10 


CONTINENTAL   CONQUEST 

factor  in  the  result  was  the  continental  expanse  of  mar- 
vellous resources  awaiting  the  labor  and  genius  of  man. 

Can  there  be  any  question  that  the  abounding  pros- 
perity- of  the  American  people  during  the  first  century 
of  their  national  life  was  due  to  this  luminous  fact? 
Can  there  be  any  reasonable  doubt  that  if  the  policy  of 
material  conquest  over  new  areas  can  find  another  field 
on  which  to  operate,  and  that  if  it  be  entered  upon  with 
the  old  vigor  and  faith,  it  will  confer  another  century  of 
prosperity  upon  the  nation  so  fortunately  endowed? 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  HOME-BUILDIN^G  INSTINCT  OF  THE  AMERICAlSr  PEOPLE 

Speaking  in  broad  terms,  there  have  been  three  great 
eras  of  colonization  in  the  United  States.  All  of  these 
eras  have  been  well  defined,  intelligible,  and  eventful. 
They  peopled  successively  the  Atlantic  coast,  the  trans- 
AUeghany  region  from  Lakes  to  Gulf,  and  the  valley  of 
the  Mississippi.  Taken  together,  they  made  virtually 
complete  the  conquest  of  Eastern  America,  and  in  Eastern 
America  over  ninety  per  cent,  of  the  national  population 
dwells  to-day. 

A  study  of  these  historic  movements  reveals  a  striking 
fact.  It  is  a  fact  which  throws  a  flood  of  light  on  the 
American  character,  explaining  much  that  has  occurred 
in  the  past  and  furnishing  secure  ground  upon  which 
to  base  predictions  of  much  that  is  to  happen  in  the 
future.  The  American  colonist,  from  Plymouth  in 
Massachusetts  to  Plymouth  in  Idaho,  has  fixed  his  eyes 
on  one  star,  which  has  shone  out  serene  and  steady 
through  the  clouds  of  religious  persecution,  of  war,  and 
of  economic  strife.  That  star  stood  for  home.  To  build 
a  home  for  himself  and  his  children,  to  live  there  at 
peace  with  his  neighbors  and  the  world,  to  make  better 
institutions  for  average  humanity — this,  when  the  sub- 
ject is  viewed  as  a  whole,  is  seen  to  have  been  the  con- 

13 


THE    HOME-BUILDING    INSTINCT 

sistent  aim   of  American  colonization  from  the  begin- 
ning. 

There  are  a  few  exceptions  to  be  noted,  bnt  they  are 
not  of  sufficient  importance  to  affect  the  general  result. 
Snch  exceptions  are  the  settlement  of  California,  and  of 
certain  localities  in  the  Rocky  Mountains,  during  periods 
of  excitement  following  the  discovery  of  gold.     Another 
instance  was  the   settlement  of  Kansas  as  a  means  of 
preserving  the  equilibrium  between  the  free  and  the  slave 
States.     But  these  are   isolated  instances,  of  far  more 
moment  in  an  historical  than  in  a  numerical  sense.    The 
settlers  of  the  United  States  have  been  moved  by  very 
different  instincts  and   motives  than  those  which  im- 
pelled the  Romans,  the  Normans,  and  Danes  to  settle  at 
different  periods  in  Britain.     The  great  movements  of 
population  in  the  Middle  Ages  were  armed  conquests 
for  spoils,  and  power,  and  martial  glory.    Those,  indeed, 
were  the  ruling  motives  among  Europeans  and  Asiatics 
until  comparatively  recent  times.     When  these  motives 
ceased  to  operate,  they  were  succeeded  by  another  which 
was  equally  sordid,  even  if  more  humane.    This  was  the 
lust  for  trade  or  for  sudden  riches.      This  it  was  which 
impelled  the  settlement  of  Australasia  by  the  English, 
of  the  Spice  Islands  by  the  Dutch,  of  South  America  by 
the  Portuguese,  of  Cuba  by  the  Spanish,  of  Africa  by  all 
of  these  and  by  the  French  and  Germans  as  well.     Thus 
the  hosts  which  swarmed  out  of  Europe  to  make  new 
settlements  all  over  the  earth  were  principally  marshalled 
under  the  flag  of  avarice.     It  was  far  different  with  the 
men  who,  at  various  periods  during  the  last  three  hundred 
years,  conquered  the  soil  of  the  United  States  and  ex- 
tended the  frontiers  of  its  civilization. 

13 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

The  settlement  of  the  New  World  was  largely  inaugu- 
rated by  those  who  fled  from  religious  persecution.  But 
it  cannot  be  said  on  that  account  that  their  ruling  mo- 
tive was  not  the  desire  to  enjoy  the  security  of  a  home. 
Religious  sentiment  lies  very  close  to  the  hearth-stone. 
Upon  its  human  side,  at  least,  it  has  nothing  in  common 
with  politics.  Still  less  is  it  related  to  the  struggle  for 
gain.  It  was  because  they  could  not  live  at  peace  in 
Europe,  because  they  could  not  be  certain  of  life  or 
tenancy  in  any  one  place,  and  therefore  could  not  ac- 
cumulate a  competence  for  their  children,  that  the  relig- 
ious enthusiasts  fled  over  the  sea.  The  Puritan  in  Mass- 
achusetts, the  Baptist  in  Rhode  Island,  the  Quaker  in 
Pennsylvania,  and  the  Catholic  in  Maryland,  looked  less 
passionately  upon  their  spires  and  crosses  than  upon  the 
babies  in  their  cradles,  the  vegetables  in  their  gardens, 
and  the  smoke  which  curled  from  their  chimneys. 

It  is  true  that  there  were  many  fanatics  in  the  sev- 
enteenth and  previous  centuries  to  whom  religion  was 
dearer  than  home ;  but  it  was  not  the  axes  of  these 
fanatics  that  felled  the  American  forests.  Their  devoted 
spirits  were  freed  at  the  stake,  or  at  the  block,  or  their 
poor  bodies  festered  in  foul  prisons.  It  was  the  element 
whose  love  of  home  and  kindred  was  too  powerful  to 
permit  them  to  suffer  martyrdom,  even  though  their 
convictions  forbade  them  to  eschew  their  religious  prac- 
tices, who  inaugurated  the  first  era  of  colonization  on 
these  shores.  Theirs  are  the  first  footprints  in  our  his- 
tory, and  they  lead  straight  to  the  home  and  the  fire- 
side. 

The  second  real  era  of  colonization  came  with  the 
end  of  the   Revolution.     Previous   to  that   event  the 

14 


THE    HOME-BUILDING    INSTINCT 

trans-Alleghany  country  was  but  vaguely  known  as  a 
whole.  Daniel  Boone  had,  indeed,  built  his  cabin  in  the 
wilds  of  Kentucky,  and  adventurous  spirits  had  begun 
to  follow  him  from  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas.  James 
Kobertson  and  John  Sevier,  leading  the  hardy  back- 
woodsmen of  the  Scotch  Presbyterian  faith,  had  begun 
the  making  of  Tennessee.  The  French  Creoles  had 
lived  for  three  generations  in  the  slumberous  repose  of 
widely  scattered  villages  in  the  Ohio  Valley,  and  had 
gathered  in  some  numbers  at  New  Orleans.  But  the 
hour  for  the  real  movement  of  population  to  the  west- 
ward of  the  mountains  had  not  struck.  When  it  did 
strike,  it  found  the  home-building  instinct  of  the  Amer- 
ican people  instantly  and  passionately  responsive  to  its 
summons.  It  was  the  returning  veterans  from  the  War 
of  Independence  who  lent  the  first  great  impulse  to  the 
new  emigration.  Hardened  by  years  of  out-door  life, 
thoroughly  weaned  from  the  atmosphere  of  the  town  and 
the  shop,  finding  their  places  on  the  farms  largely  filled 
by  boys  who,  during  their  absence,  had  grown  to  self- 
reliance,  if  not  to  manhood,  these  war-worn  veterans 
were  not  unwilling  to  transfer  their  battle-ground  from 
the  sea-coast  to  the  wilderness,  and  to  fight  for  homes 
as  ardently  as  they  had  struggled  for  political  indepen- 
dence. 

During  the  next  thirty  years  the  population  of  Ken- 
tucky leaped  from  about  seventy  thousand  to  over  half  a 
million,  and  that  of  Tennessee  from  thirty  thousand  to 
over  four  hundred  thousand.  Ohio,  Indiana  and  Illi- 
nois, which  had  no  place  in  the  census  of  1790,  were 
credited,  respectively,  with  nearly  six  hundred  thousand, 
one  hundred  and  forty-seven  thousand,  and  fifty-five 

15 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

thousand,  in  1820.  The  movement  went  on  without 
pause  until  the  outbreak  of  the  great  rebellion.  It  was 
even  more  plainly  marked  with  the  home-seeking  char- 
acter than  the  earlier  settlement  of  the  seaboard  States. 
We  need  not  in  this  instance  seek  the  home-loving  in- 
stinct under  the  religious  motive.  The  circumstances 
and  the  methods  of  the  new  army  of  settlers  revealed 
the  supreme  object  of  their  emigration. 

The  lands  along  the  coast  and  in  the  rich  valleys  of 
tidal  rivers  had  been  well  occupied  by  a  people  who  en- 
joyed substantial  prosperity,  not  only  as  the  reward  of 
their  industry,  but  also  as  the  result  of  their  priority 
of  settlement.  The  country  had  grown.  It  was  plainly 
upon  the  verge  of  a  larger  and  more  rapid  expansion. 
These  circumstances  enhanced  the  value  of  property 
and  laid  the  foundation  of  many  family  fortunes,  espe- 
cially where  the  colonial  hamlets  had  grown  to  be  towns, 
and  promised  to  become  populous  cities.  The  early- 
comers  and  their  descendants  were  being  steadily  en- 
riched by  the  unearned  increment.  Those  who  were 
thus  established  had  no  occasion  to  move,  but  their  less 
fortunate  neighbors  longed  for  homes  of  their  own,  and 
were  ready  to  take  quick  advantage  of  the  opportunity 
which  the  war  and  the  Ordinance  of  1787  had  opened 
for  them  in  the  West.  These  people  were  almost  uni- 
versally poor  in  a  worldly  sense,  but  rich  in  courage  and 
intelligence  and  full  of  the  spirit  of  empire-builders. 
They  were  no  more  a  class  of  greedy  speculators  than 
were  the  pioneers  of  New  England.  They  emigrated 
in  order  that  they  might  improve  their  condition.  They 
were  home-seekers  pure  and  simple.  Placed  completely 
beyond  the  influence  of  Europe,  and  acting  under  a  new 

16 


THE    HOME-BUILDING    INSTINCT 

spirit  of  nationality,  the  people  concerned  in  our  second 
era  of  colonization  developed  a  rugged  Americanism  be- 
fore unknown.  This  spirit  was  typified  in  the  character 
of  Abraham  Lincoln,  who  was  one  of  its  products. 

The  third  era  of  colonization  followed  the  War  of  the 
Rebellion,  as  the  second  had  followed  the  War  of  the  Revo- 
lution, and  largely  for  the  same  reason.  The  cessation 
of  hostilities  and  the  disbandment  of  the  armies  turned 
back  into  the  paths  of  peace  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
veterans.  They  were  filled  with  an  over-mastering  desire 
for  homes.  They  longed  for  a  chance  to  work  for  them- 
selves, as  their  fathers  and  forefathers  had  done.  Uncle 
Sam  was  still  proprietor  of  a  vast  estate  of  virgin  and 
fertile  soil.  The  homestead  law  beckoned  to  the  return- 
ing hosts  like  the  finger  of  fate.  The  result  was  the 
phenomenal  settlement  of  the  Upper  Mississippi  Valley 
and  the  creation  of  States  where  the  old  soldier  reigned 
all  but  supreme.  In  a  period  of  twenty  years  after  the 
war  Nebraska  jumped  from  a  population  of  twenty-eight 
thousand  to  nearly  half  a  million ;  Kansas  from  one 
hundred  thousand  to  a  round  million;  Iowa  from  six 
hnndred  thousand  to  a  million  and  six  hundred  thousand; 
Dakota  from  five  thousand  to  one  hundred  and  forty 
thousand,  while  Minnesota  also  added  more  than  half  a 
million  to  her  total. 

The  movement  never  paused  until  it  encountered  an 
obstacle  beyond  the  power  of  the  individual  settler  to 
overcome.  This  obstacle  was  aridity — the  failure  of 
rainfall  to  meet  the  demands  of  agriculture.  The  im- 
petus of  the  movement  carried  its  vanguard  across  the 
danger-line  and  into  the  territory  where  existence  could 
not  be  maintained  without  recourse  to  methods  then  lit- 
B  17 


THE    CONQUEST    OF   ARID    AMERICA 

tie  understood,  and  indeed  not  fully  developed.  Upon 
this  strange  boundary  of  prosperity,  which  nature  had 
marked  with  indelible  lines,  the  hosts  engaged  in  the 
third  colonization  era  trembled  and  hesitated  for  several 
years,  then  fell  back  baffled  and  disappointed. 

The  first  act  in  the  drama  of  American  settlement 
ended  in  the  eastern  foothills  of  the  Alleghany  moun- 
tains about  1770;  the  second,  in  the  neighborhood  of 
the  Mississippi  river  about  1860 ;  the  third,  midway 
on  the  plains  of  Dakota,  Nebraska,  Kansas,  and  Texas 
about  1890.  For  each  of  these  historic  periods  we 
might  find  a  fit  and  speaking  emblem  in  its  character- 
istic means  of  transportation.  The  emblem  of  the  first 
would  be  the  little  Mayflower,  tossing  on  the  billows  of 
the  Atlantic  ;  that  of  the  second,  the  heavily  laden  pack- 
horse,  threading  his  tortuous  way  through  the  tangle  of 
the  untrodden  forest;  that  of  the  third,  the  prairie 
schooner,  steering  for  the  setting  sun  across  the  trackless 
sea  of  the  plains. 

The  wonderful  drama  of  American  colonization  has  re- 
served a  fourth  and  crowning  act,  for  which  the  scenery 
is  arranged  and  the  actors  ready. 


CHAPTER  m 
THE  BETTER  HALF  OF  THE   UNITED  STATES 

The  ninety-seventh  meridian  divides  the  United  States 
almost  exactly  into  halves.  East  of  that  line  dwell 
seventy-five  million  people.  Here  are  overgrown  cities 
and  over-crowded  industries.  Here  is  surplus  capital,  as 
idle  and  burdensome  as  the  surplus  population.  West  of 
that  line  dwell  five  or  six  millions — less  than  the  popula- 
tion of  Pennsylvania,  and  scarcely  more  than  that  of 
Greater  New  York.  And  yet  the  vast  territory  to  the 
West — so  little  known,  so  lightly  esteemed,  so  sparsely 
peopled — is  distinctly  the  better  half  of  the  United  States. 

The  West  and  East  are  different  sections,  not  merely 
in  name  and  geographical  location,  but  in  physical  en- 
dowments and  fundamental  elements  of  economic  life. 
Nature  wrote  upon  them,  in  her  own  indelible  charac- 
ters, the  story  of  their  wide  contrasts  and  the  prophecy 
of  their  varying  civilizations.  To  the  one  were  given  the 
advantages  of  earlier  development,  but  for  the  other  were 
reserved  the  opportunities  of  a  riper  time.  It  was  the 
destiny  of  the  one  to  blossom  and  fruit  in  an  epoch  dis- 
tinguished for  the  accumulation  of  wealth,  with  its  vast 
possibilities  of  evil  and  of  good.  It  was  the  destiny  of 
the  other  to  lie  fallow  until  humanity  should  feel  a 
nobler  impulse ;  then  to  nurse,  in  the  shadow  of  its  ever- 

19 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

lasting  monntains  and  the  warmth  of  its  unfailing  sun- 
shine, new  dreams  of  liberty  and  equality  for  men. 

That  this  is  not  the  popular  conception  of  the  mission 
of  the  Far  West  may  be  frankly  acknowledged.  The 
region  is  little  known  to  the  great  middle  -  classes  in 
American  life.  It  has  been  demonstrated  by  actual  stat- 
istics that  only  three  per  cent,  of  our  people  travel  more 
than  fifty  miles  from  their  homes  in  the  course  of  a  year. 
Those  who  make  extended  pleasure  tours  gravitate  not 
unnaturally  to  Europe,  drawn  by  the  fascination  of 
quaint  foreign  scenes  and  the  fame  of  historic  places. 
But  the  comparatively  few  whose  business  or  fancy  has 
taken  them  across  the  continent  fail,  as  a  rule,  to  grasp 
the  true  significance  of  the  wide  empire  which  stretches 
from  the  middle  of  the  great  pkins  to  the  shores  of  the 
Western  sea. 

It  is  a  common  human  instinct  to  regard  unfamiliar 
conditions  with  distrust.  The  first  settlers  in  Iowa  en- 
gaged in  desperate  rivalry  for  possession  of  the  wooded 
lands,  thinking  that  no  soil  was  fit  for  agricultural  pur- 
poses unless  it  furnished  the  pioneer  an  opportunity  to 
cut  down  trees  and  pull  up  stumps.  *'  Land  that  won't 
grow  trees  won't  grow  anything,"  was  the  maxim  of  the 
knowing  ones.  Their  fathers  had  cleared  the  forests  on 
the  slopes  of  the  AUeghanies  to  make  way  for  the  plough 
and  the  field,  and  the  new  generation  could  not  conceive 
that  land  which  bore  rich  crops  of  wild  grasses  and  lay 
plastic  and  level  for  the  husbandman  to  begin  his  labors, 
could  have  any  value.  A  great  deal  of  hard  work  was 
wasted  before  it  was  discovered  that  nature  had  provided 
new  and  superior  conditions  in  the  land  beyond  the 
Mississippi. 

20 


BETTER  HALF  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 

So  it  generally  happens  that  the  casual  Western  trav- 
eller, looking  at  the  country  from  car-windows  in  the  in- 
tervals between  his  daily  paper,  brings  back  more  con- 
tempt than  admiration  for  the  economic  possibilities  of 
the  country.  One  must  live  in  the  Far  West  to  begin 
to  comprehend  it.  Not  only  so,  but  he  must  come  with 
eager  eyes  from  an  older  civilization,  and  he  must  study 
the  beginnings  of  industrial  and  social  institutions 
throughout  the  region  as  a  whole,  to  have  any  adequate 
appreciation  of  the  real  potentialities  of  that  half  of  the 
United  States  which  has  been  reserved  for  the  theatre  of 
twentieth-century  developments.  To  all  other  observers 
the  new  West  is  a  sealed  book. 

The  West  is  divided  from  the  East  by  a  boundary-line 
which  is  not  imaginary.  It  is  a  plain  mark  on  the  face 
of  the  earth,  and  no  man  made  it.  It  is  the  place  where 
the  region  of  assured  rainfall  ends  and  the  arid  region 
begins.  There  have  formerly  been  some  costly  doubts 
about  the  precise  location  of  this  line,  but  these  have 
been  dispelled  by  experience,  and  the  lesson  learned  in 
hardship  and  impressed  by  disaster  is  learned  for  all 
time.  The  momentous  boundary  -  line  is  that  of  the 
ninety-seventh  meridian,  which  cleaves  in  twain  the 
Dakotas,  Nebraska,  Kansas,  Oklahoma,  and  Texas.  East 
of  this  line  there  is  a  rainfall  which  is  accepted  as  re- 
liable, though  there  are  alternate  disasters  of  drought 
and  flood,  varying  in  their  effects  from  short  crops  to 
total  failures. 

Even  in  humid  regions  nothing  is  so  uncertain  as  the 
time  and  amount  of  the  rainfall.  In  the  whole  range  of 
modern  industry  nothing  is  so  crude,  uncalculating,  and 
unscientific  as  the  childlike  dependence  on  the  mood  of 

31 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

the  clouds  for  the  moisture  essential  to  the  production 
of  the  staple  necessities  of  life. 

The  distinguishing  characteristic  of  the  vast  region 
west  of  the  ninety-seventh  meridian  is,  then,  its  aridity — 
the  lack  of  rainfall  sufficient  to  insure  the  success  of 
agriculture.  The  new  empire  includes,  in  whole  or  in 
part,  seventeen  States  and  Territories.  It  is  a  region  of 
magnificent  dimensions.  From  north  to  south  it  meas- 
ures as  far  as  from  Montreal  to  Mobile.  From  east  to 
west  the  distance  is  greater  than  from  Boston  to  Omaha. 
Within  these  wide  boundaries  there  are  great  diversities  of 
climate  and  soil,  of  altitude  and  other  physical  conditions. 

The  arid  region  was  the  latest  acquisition  of  national 
territory,  except  Alaska,  until  the  late  war  with  Spain. 
It  was  unknown  and  undisputed  as  late  as  the  Revolu- 
tion. It  was  the  fruit  of  James  Monroe's  negotiations 
with  Napoleon  I.,  resulting  in  the  Louisiana  purchase  ;  of 
the  forcible  conquest  from  Mexico  ;  of  the  annexation  of 
Texas,  and  of  the  Gadsden  purchase  in  1853,  Unlike 
the  rich  and  well-watered  lands  in  the  valley  and  around 
the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi,  the  acquisition  of  the  arid 
region  was  not  compelled  by  the  irresistible  pressure  of. 
the  frontiersmen.  It  came  as  a  perquisite  with  the  pur- 
chase of  Louisiana,  and  as  a  concession  to  manifest  des- 
tiny. Between  the  day  of  its  acquisition  by  the  United 
States  and  the  dawn  of  its  peculiar  and  enduring  civili- 
zation, the  country  was  destined  to  pass  through  three 
distinct  eras.  The  first  was  that  of  the  hunter  and 
trapper ;  the  second,  that  of  the  cowboy  and  the  rude 
miner ;  the  third,  that  of  the  railroad,  the  land-boomer, 
and  the  speculative  farmer,  with  mining  reduced  to  a 
stable  industry. 


BETTER  HALF  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 

The  first  exploration  of  the  strange  new  land  of  the 
mysterious  West  owed  its  initiative  to  the  public  spirit 
of  President  Jefferson.  He  had,  indeed,  but  the  vaguest 
conception  of  the  possible  utility  of  the  country,  and 
realized  that  its  development  would  come  long  after  he 
should  have  passed  from  the  stage  of  events.  But  he 
was  a  patron  of  science,  and  felt,  moreover,  a  patriotic 
curiosity  to  learn  what  sort  of  a  property  the  nation  had 
acquired.  Congress  cheerfully  authorized  the  expedition 
which  Jefferson  proposed.  The  result  was  the  journey 
of  the  famous  explorers  Lewis  and  Clark,  begun  in 
May,  1804.  Starting  from  St.  Louis,  they  ascended  the 
Missouri  river  to  its  sources,  crossed  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains in  Montana,  and  followed  the  Columbia  river  to  its 
outlet  in  the  Pacific  Ocean.  When  they  returned  and 
presented  their  report,  the  public  obtained  its  first  glim- 
mering of  knowledge  concerning  the  geology,  climate, 
and  animal  and  human  life  of  the  Far  West.  The  subject 
was  then  one  of  remote  interest  to  the  nation,  which  had 
scarcely  acquired  its  foothold,  through  actual  settlement, 
on  the  northwestern  Territories  between  the  Alkeghanies 
and  the  Mississippi. 

The  second  notable  explorations  were  those  of  Zebulon 
Pike,  which  developed  a  superficial  knowledge  of  Colo- 
rado and  Mexico.  Then  came  Bonneville,  Fremont,  and 
their  contemporaries  and  successors,  with  adventurous 
settlers  and  hardy  gold-hunters  treading  close  upon  their 
heels,  and  effecting  little  substantial  development  for 
decades.  Francis  Parkman,  fresh  from  college,  roamed 
through  the  country  as  far  as  the  Black  Hills  and  old  Fort 
Laramie  in  1847-8,  and  left  a  lively  account  of  the  savage 
wilderness  in  The  Oregon  Trail. 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

Thus  gradually,  and  attended  by  many  misrepresenta- 
tions and  strange  misconceptions,  which  inevitably  scat- 
tered wide  the  seeds  of  prejudice,  the  arid  region  emerged 
from  absolute  obscurity  and  stood  partially  revealed  to 
men.  It  was  not,  however,  until  a  few  pioneer  settle- 
ments had  demonstrated  undreamed-of  results,  nor  until 
Major  John  W.  Powell,  by  utterances  as  daring  as  his 
explorations,  had  furnished  a  scientific  basis  for  a  brood 
of  new  hopes,  that  the  real  character  of  Arid  America 
began  to  glow,  like  the  belated  sun  through  a  morning 
fog,  upon  the  popular  imagination. 

The  superiority  of  the  western  half-continent  over  its 
eastern  counterpart  may  not  be  expressed  in  a  word.  It 
is,  rather,  a  matter  for  patient  unfolding  through  a  study 
of  natural  conditions  over  wide  areas,  and  a  scrutiny  of 
the  human  institutions  which  are  the  inevitable  product 
of  this  environment.  Aridity,  in  the  elementary  sense, 
is  purely  an  affair  of  climate.  That  it  is  also  the  germ  of 
new  industrial  and  social  systems,  with  far-reaching 
possibilities  in  the  fields  of  ethics  and  politics,  will  be 
demonstrated  further  on  in  these  pages.  But  the  first 
item  of  importance  in  the  assets  of  the  new  West  is 
climate. 

When  an  inhabitant  of  the  Atlantic  seaboard,  or  of 
the  shores  of  the  Great  Lakes,  or  of  the  lowlands  of  the 
South,  can  no  longer  withstand  the  penetration  of  cold, 
damp  winds,  or  the  malarious  breath  of  swamps,  his 
family  physician  sends  him  to  the  arid  West.  Through- 
out its  length  and  breadth  it  is  one  vast  sanitarium. 
Its  pure,  sweet  air  and  sunny  skies  are  instinct  with  the 
breath  of  life.  They  put  new  heart  into  the  drooping 
invalid,  prolonging   his  life,  and,  if  he  be  not  too  far 

24 


BETTER  HALF  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 

gone  at  the  ontset,  restoring  the  old  vigor  to  the  shat- 
tered body.  The  faces  of  the  permanent  sojourners 
within  their  influence  they  paint  with  the  brown  badge 
of  health.  It  is  too  eariy  as  yet  to  observe  the  full  effect 
of  the  climate  on  the  population  of  the  arid  West,  but 
sufficient  results  are  apparent  to  warrant  the  assertion 
that  these  influences  will  breed  a  great  race. 

The  element  of  aridity  not  only  fosters  health,  but 
moderates  and  makes  more  readily  bearable  the  sum- 
mer's heat  and  winter's  cold.  It  is  the  damp  cold  that 
penetrates  to  the  marrow.  It  is  the  humid  heat  that 
prostrates.  To  say  that  a  cold  of  thirty  degrees  below 
zero  at  Helena,  in  Montana,  is  felt  less  than  ten  degrees 
above  zero  in  Chicago  or  New  York  ;  or  to  say  that 
eighty-five  degrees  above  zero  in  the  East  is  more  dan- 
gerous to  the  laborer  than  one  hundred  and  fifteen  de- 
grees at  Indio,  in  the  Colorado  desert,  is  to  put  a  severe 
tax  on  popular  credulity.  Nevertheless,  both  state- 
ments are  literally  true,  as  all  who  have  experienced  the 
conditions  testify. 

Science  corroborates  the  story.  The  United  States 
Weather  Bureau  has  perfected  in  recent  years  an  in- 
strument to  measure  the  difference  between  apparent 
and  sensible  temperature,  which  is  determined  by  hu- 
midity, or  lack  of  it.  The  instrument,  which  consists 
of  a  dry  and  of  a  wet  thermometer,  has  been  in  opera- 
tion at  Yuma,  in  southwestern  Arizona,  since  1888.  Mr. 
A.  Ashenberger,  the  official  observer,  reports  that  the 
hottest  day  in  that  period  was  July  20, 1892.  On  that  day 
the  dry  thermometer  registered  one  hundred  and  four- 
teen degrees  of  apparent  heat,  and  the  wet  thermometer 
sixty -nine  degrees  of  sensible  heat — a  difference  of  f  orty- 

26 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

three  degrees.  The  scientific  findings  are  borne  out  by 
the  every -day  testimony  of  individuals.  Sun-strokes  in 
the  arid  region  are  practically  unknown.  The  rainless  air 
that  sweeps  over  the  arid  lands  of  western  America  is 
necessarily  dry.  It  neither  breeds  diseases  nor  carries 
their  germs.  It  is  the  very  breath  of  health.  The  lack 
of  moisture,  combined  with  the  configuration,  forbids 
the  presence  of  tornadoes,  and  the  Weather  Bureau  has 
absolutely  no  record  of  such  a  calamity  west  of  the 
ninety-seventh  meridian. 

The  superior  climate  of  the  arid  West  is  due  to  funda- 
mental conditions  which  differ  widely  from  those  of  east- 
ern America.  Viewed  from  the  stand-point  of  the  broader 
climatic  effects,  the  eastern  half  of  the  United  States  is 
one  wide  plain.  The  moisture-laden  winds  from  lakes 
and  gulf,  as  from  the  great  ocean  itself,  meet  none  but 
insignificant  barriers.  But  in  the  Far  West  the  moun- 
tains are  the  supreme  factor  in  the  making  of  the  cli- 
mate. The  coast  range  stands  eternal  guard  along  the 
margin  of  the  sea,  while  a  little  farther  inland  the  Sierra 
Nevada  lifts  its  giant  peaks  to  intercept  the  clouds  which 
escape  the  outer  barrier  and  to  condense  their  moisture 
into  snow.  Down  the  centre  of  the  continent,  from 
Canada  to  Mexico,  the  Rocky  Mountains  tower  far  into 
the  sky,  repeating  upon  the  eastern  edge  of  the  arid 
region  the  process  of  condensing  and  storing  the  winter's 
rain  and  holding  it  against  the  summer's  need.  Between 
the  three  great  primary  ranges  scores  of  shorter  ones,  or 
isolated  mountain  groups,  reach  their  long  arms  into  the 
desert.  The  dryness,  purity,  and  lightness  of  the  at- 
mosphere are  due  to  this  mountain  topography,  and  to 
the  high  average  altitude  throughout  the  region.     It  is. 


BETTER   HALF   OF   THE   UNITED    STATES 

then,  in  the  striking  character  of  its  climate,  springing 
from  these  fixed  and  fundamental  conditions,  that  the 
great  West  scores  its  first  superiority  over  the  well-settled 
states  east  of  the  Mississippi  river. 

But  the  nation's  sanitarium  is  also  the  nation's  treas- 
ure-house. Without  the  store  of  precious  metals  which 
sleeps  in  the  bosom  of  the  western  mountains  the  Ameri- 
can people  would  be  practically  dependent  on  foreign 
lands  for  their  supply  of  gold  and  silver.  From  this 
pitiable  plight  the  nation  was  saved  by  the  wise  states- 
manship and  the  great  good  fortune  which  brought  into 
the  Union  the  States  of  Colorado,  Utah,  and  California, 
of  Idaho,  Montana,  and  Nevada,  of  Washington,  Oregon, 
and  Wyoming,  and  the  Territories  of  New  Mexico  and 
Arizona.  European  nations  testify  their  appreciation 
of  such  resources  by  struggling  for  the  possession  of 
South  Africa,  a  mineral  field  scarcely  worthy  to  be 
mentioned  in  comparison  with  that  of  our  own  great 
West. 

The  western  half-continent  is  rich  not  merely  in  the 
precious  metals,  but  in  all  the  raw  materials  of  economic 
greatness.  Its  supreme  advantage  consists  in  the  ex- 
traordinary diversity  of  its  resources.  In  sketching  the 
peculiarities  of  the  several  Western  States,  further  on  in 
these  pages,  the  facts  will  be  stated  with  more  detail.  In 
directing  attention  to  the  general  superiority  of  these 
States  over  their  sisters  of  the  East,  it  is  sufiicient  now  to 
say  that  they  have  more  water-power  than  New  England ; 
more  coal,  iron,  and  oil  than  Pennsylvania ;  larger  and 
better  forests  than  Maine  and  Michigan  ;  and  produce 
better  wheat  and  corn  than  Illinois  and  Indiana.  The 
time  is  rapidly  coming  when  they  will  produce  more  and 

27 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

better  sugar  than  Louisiana,  and  will  revolutionize  the 
tanning  industry  by  supplanting  oak  and  hemlock  bark 
with  canaigre.  With  beef  and  mutton,  wool  and  hides, 
they  already  feed  and  clothe  the  East.  They  have  finer 
harbors  than  Boston  and  New  York,  and  a  sea-coast 
which  faces  a  greater  foreign  world. 

There  is  no  Eastern  State  that  compares  with  almost 
any  one  of  these  giant  commonwealths  of  the  compara- 
tively unknown  West  in  anything  save  present  develop- 
ment, which  includes,  of  course,  population,  wealth,  and 
political  influence.  So  emphatic  and  unmistakable  is  the 
superiority  with  which  nature  endowed  the  Far  West 
that  it  may  be  said  in  all  seriousness  that  if  the  Pilgrim 
Fathers  had  landed  at  San  Diego  rather  than  at  Ply- 
mouth, that  half  of  the  country  which  now  contains  over 
ninety  per  cent,  of  the  total  population  would  be  regarded 
as  comparatively  worthless.  It  would  have  been  difficult 
to  settle  it  to  the  best  advantage.  To  illustrate  :  imagine 
the  excitement  which  would  occur  if  the  people  of  New 
England  should  awaken  some  morning  to  find  themselves 
in  possession  of  the  climate  and  diversified  resources  of 
Colorado,  Washington,  or  California !  Even  the  sane 
brain  which  rules  the  land  of  steady  habits  would  grow 
dizzy  in  the  presence  of  such  vast  possibilities.  And  yet 
Colorado,  Washington,  and  California  represent  but  a 
small  proportion  of  the  country  which  rests  under  the 
wide  arch  of  our  western  sky. 

In  briefly  reviewing  the  salient  points  of  difference  be- 
tween the  old  section  and  the  new,  the  feature  which 
constitutes  at  once  the  most  characteristic  and  the  most 
fundamental  advantage  of  the  West  has  been  left  for 
separate  treatment.     Not  until  this  feature  has  been  con- 

28 


I 


BETTER  HALF  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 

sidered  is  it  possible  to  appreciate  the  striking  character 
of  the  new  civilization  which  will  rule  the  destinies  of 
the  western  half  of  the  continent,  and,  very  probably, 
project  new  and  potent  influences  into  the  social  and 
political  life  of  the  United  States  as  a  whole. 


CHAPTER  rV 
THE  BLESSING  OF  ARIDITY 

FoRTUiifATE  beyond  all  other  parts  of  the  United  States 
in  its  climate  and  in  the  surpassing  wealth  of  its  forests, 
its  quarries  and  its  mines,  western  America  is  yet  more 
favored  in  another  element  of  its  physical  foundation. 
This  is  the  substantial  aridity  which  prevails  throughout 
its  vast  proportions. 

The  anomaly  that  its  foremost  blessing  should  consist 
in  the  fact  which  gave  it  a  wide-spread  reputation  for 
worthlessness  is  interesting,  but  unimportant.  Nature 
frequently  conceals  her  raw  materials  of  greatness,  alike 
in  men  and  in  countries,  until  time  and  opportunity  are 
ripe.  In  the  aridity  of  the  West  we  shall  find  the  true 
key  to  its  future  institutions.  Climate  may  produce  a 
healthy  race,  and  mineral  resources  may  enrich  it,  but 
the  natural  conditions  which  determine  the  character  of 
social  and  industrial  organization,  and  mould  the  habits 
and  customs  of  men,  are  the  potent  influences  which 
shape  civilization.  Hence  we  shall  see  that  in  any  just 
estimate  of  the  relative  worth  of  western  resources  the 
fact  of  aridity  must  be  rated  as  high  above  the  value 
of  forests  and  mines  as  human  progress  is  dearer  than 
money,  and  as  the  fate  of  the  race  is  more  momentous 
than  the  prosperity  of  individuals. 

30 


THE    BLESfeiNG    OF    ARIDITY 

The  inflnence  of  the  new  environment  may  readily  be 
illustrated  by  comparing  the  conditions  which  confronted 
the  early  settlers  of  the  New  England  forests  and  the  Illi- 
nois prairie,  on  one  hand,  and,  upon  the  other,  those 
which  the  settler  met  in  the  deserts  around  Salt  Lake. 
Except  for  the  temporary  need  of  defence  against  the 
Indians,  eastern  settlers  were  able  to  locate  their  homes 
without  reference  to  neighbors.  They  cleared  the  forest 
or  turned  the  prairie  sod,  and  were  ready  to  begin. 
They  generally  took  all  the  land  they  could  claim  under 
the  law,  and  held  much  of  it  out  of  use  for  speculation. 
The  greed  for  land  resulted  in  large  farms,  aud  this  in- 
volved social  isolation.  The  individual  acted  alone  and 
exclusively  for  his  own  benefit.  The  conditions  not  only 
favored,  but  practically  compelled  it.  Out  of  this  primal 
germ  of  our  eastern  citizenship  grew  the  plant  of  indi- 
vidual enterprise,  which  is  the  conspicuous  product  of 
the  time.  The  fruit  which  it  bore  was  competition,  and 
this  has  latterly  tended  towards  monopoly. 

The  conditions  which  confronted  the  settler  in  the 
deserts  of  Utah  were  widely  different.  There  he  could 
not  build  his  home  and  make  his  living  regardless  of  his 
neighbor.  Without  water  to  irrigate  the  rich  but  arid 
soil  he  could  not  raise  a  spear  of  grass  nor  an  ear  of 
com.  Water  for  irrigation  could  only  be  obtained  by 
turning  the  course  of  a  stream  and  building  canals  which 
must  sometimes  be  cut  into  the  solid  walls  of  the  canyon 
or  conducted  across  chasms  in  flumes.  All  this  lay  be- 
yond the  reach  of  the  individual.  Thus  it  was  found 
that  the  association  and  organization  of  men  were  the 
price  of  life  and  prosperity  in  the  arid  West.  The  alter- 
native was  starvation.     The  plant  which  grew  from  this 

31 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

new  seed  was  associative  enterprise,  and  we  shall  pres- 
ently see  what  flower  it  bore  in  Utah  and  other  States  of 
the  arid  region.  But  it  is  interesting  to  first  observe 
that  we  have  encountered  in  these  underlying  conditions 
of  the  western  half-continent  principles  that  are  as  old 
as  history  and  as  wide  as  humanity. 

The  founders  of  the  wonderful  civilization  of  the 
Netherlands  were  compelled  to  deal  with  conditions 
which  brought  into  action  the  same  forces  as  those 
which  are  working  out  interesting  results  in  the  arid 
region  of  the  United  States.  The  Dutch  combined  and 
organized  their  efforts  in  order  to  keep  the  water  off 
their  lands,  as  the  Westerners  combine  and  organize  to 
bring  the  water  on.  Writing  of  this  aspect  of  his  sub- 
ject in  that  enlightening  book.  The  Puritan  in  Holland^ 
England,  and  America^  Mr.  Douglass  Campbell  says  : 

"The  constant  struggle  for  existence,  as  in  all  cases 
when  the  rewards  are  great  enough  to  raise  men  above 
biting,  sordid  penury,  strengthens  the  whole  race,  men- 
tally, morally,  and  physically.  Labor  here  has  never  been 
selfish  and  individual.  To  he  effective^  it  requires  organ- 
ization and  direction.  Men  learn  to  work  in  a  body  and 
under  leaders.  A  single  man  laboring  on  a  dike  would 
accomplish  nothing ;  the  whole  population  must  turn 
out  and  act  together. '' 

Even  more  interesting  and  significant  is  Mr.  CampbelFs 
statement  of  the  far-reaching  influence,  upon  the  whole 
economic  fabric  of  the  nation,  of  the  co-operative  meth- 
ods taught  the  founders  of  Holland  by  the  necessities  of 
their  situation  and  transmitted  to  their  descendants.    He 


"  The  habits  thus  engendered  extend  in  all  directions. 

32 


THE    BLESSING    OF    ARIDITY 

Everything  is  done  in  corporations"  [co-operations  ?]. 
"Each  trade  has  its  guild,  elects  its  own  officers,  and 
manages  its  own  affairs.  The  people  are  a  vast  civic 
army,  subdivided  into  brigades,  regiments,  and  com- 
panies, all  accustomed  to  discipline,  learning  the  first 
great  lesson  of  life — obedience." 

Professor  E.  W.  Hilgard,  the  distinguished  director  of 
the  agricultural  department  of  the  University  of  Cali- 
fornia, has  brought  this  line  of  reasoning  from  physical 
causes  to  industrial  effects  into  direct  application  to  our 
subject.  In  a  notable  contribution  to  the  Popular 
Science  Monthly  he  says  : 

"As  irrigation  means  heavy  investments  of  capital  or 
labor,  hence  the  co-operation  of  many  and  the  construc- 
tion of  permanent  works :  it  necessarily  implies  the  cor- 
relative existence  of  a  stable  social  organization,  with 
protection  for  property  rights,  and  (in  view  of  the 
complexity  of  the  problem  of  proper  and  equitable  dis- 
tribution of  water)  a  rather  advanced  appreciation  of 
the  need  and  advantages  of  co-operative  organization."^ 

It  was  in  the  course  of  an  effort  to  account  for  the 
singular  preference  of  the  founders  of  the  most  ancient 
civilizations  for  arid  lands,  rather  than  for  the  forested 
areas  which  have  been  the  scenes  of  later  development, 
that  Professor  Hilgard  made  this  expression  of  the 
obvious  effects  of  irrigation  on  industrial  polity.  A 
little  further  on  we  shall  see  other  interesting  results  of 
his  inquiry  in  this  field. 

The  quality  of  aridity  is  thus  the  most  significant 
among  many  striking  contrasts  which  mark  the  western 
half  of  the  United  States — the  field  for  future  settle- 
ment  and    development  —  as    fundamentally    different 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

from  the  eastern  half.  Its  relation  to  agriculture  is  im- 
portant and  interesting,  but  its  relation  to  a  future  civil- 
ization in  a  broader  sense  will  be  momentous.  It  is, 
indeed,  a  fateful  crop,  trembling  with  the  hopes  of  hu- 
manity, that  is  beginning  to  sprout  from  the  arid  soil  of 
the  far- western  deserts. 

The  blessing  of  aridity  is  again  conspicuously  illus- 
trated in  its  remarkable  effect  upon  the  soil.  The  land 
which  the  casual  traveller,  speaking  out  of  the  splendid 
depths  of  his  ignorance  and  prejudice,  condemns  as 
"worthless"  and  fit  only  "to  hold  the  earth  together," 
is  in  reality  rich  and  durable  beyond  the  most  favored 
districts  in  the  humid  regions.  It  is  the  marvel  of  every 
eastern  farmer  who  comes  in  contact  with  it.  Professor 
Hilgard  sees  in  this  phenomenal  fertility  the  most  rea- 
sonable explanation  of  the  choice  of  arid  lands  by  the 
people  foremost  in  ancient  civilization. 

It  has  puzzled  the  historian  to  account  for  the  fact 
that  the  glories  of  antiquity  sprang  from  the  heart  of 
the  desert.  The  fact  itself  is,  of  course,  beyond  dispute. 
Egypt,  Asia  Minor,  and  Syria,  with  Palestine,  "the  land 
of  milk  and  honey";  Persia,  Arabia,  and  the  classic  lands 
of  northern  India,  as  well  as  the  countries  of  the  Car- 
thaginians and  the  Moors,  were  arid  regions.  So  also 
were  the  chosen  homes  of  the  Incas  in  South  America, 
and  of  the  Aztecs  and  Toltecs  in  Mexico  and  our  own 
Southwest,  the  fame  of  whose  vanished  civilizations  is 
reflected  in  the  pages  of  Prescott  and  Baldwin.  For 
aught  we  know  to  the  contrary,  these  departed  nations 
may  have  been  perfect  types  of  the  co-operative  com- 
monwealth, and  the  knack  of  governing  them  for  the 
equal  benefit  of  all  may  be  the  most  precious  of  the  lost 

84 


THE    BLESSING    OF    ARIDITY 

arts.  Among  the  silent  witnesses  which  have  survived 
the  centuries  to  testify  to  the  engineering  skill  and 
the  perfection  of  social  organization  of  those  who  were 
swept  into  oblivion  by  nameless  calamities,  are  great 
irrigation  canals,  portions  of  which  are  even  yet  so  true 
and  substantial  as  to  serve  the  uses  of  to-day  in  con- 
junction with  modern  works.  There  are  such  instances 
in  Arizona. 

The  accepted  explanation  of  the  choice  of  the  arid 
land  by  the  ancient  races  is  that  they  sought  security 
against  savage  enemies,  both  animal  and  human,  which 
infested  the  forest.  The  theory  is  purely  sentimental 
and  quite  inconsistent  with  the  slight  but  conclusive 
evidences  of  their  superior  intelligence  and  courage 
which  yet  survive.  The  reasonable  explanation  of  the 
mystery  of  ancient  civilization  is  that  the  arid  lands 
were  chosen  because  they  were  infinitely  better  than  the 
humid  lands,  and  because  they  presented  conditions 
much  better  suited  to  the  industrial  polity  of  the  people 
and  the  age. 

In  searching  for  the  clue  of  this  mystery  Professor 
Hilgard  has  developed  facts  which  tend  to  upset  other 
accepted  theories.  It  has  long  been  conceded  that  cer- 
tain arid  districts  are  the  richest  spots  on  the  surface  of 
the  globe.  *'  The  valley  of  the  Nile,"  for  instance,  is  a 
phrase  which  is  everywhere  taken  as  a  synonym  of  ex- 
traordinary fertility.  The  richness  and  durability  of 
the  Nile  lands,  which  have  supported  for  centuries  an 
average  population  of  little  more  than  one  and  one-half 
persons  to  each  acre  of  cultivated  soil  (a  density  of  set- 
tlement which  would  give  Texas  a  population  of  over 
one  hundred  and  sixty  millions),  has  been  ascribed  to 

35 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

the  fertilizing  quality  of  the  annual  deposit  of  river  sedi- 
mentl  The  partisans  of  irrigation  have  made  much  of 
this  aspect  of  the  matter,  asserting  that  the  artificial 
application  of  water  is  itself  a  means  of  fertilization. 
They  have  asserted  the  claim  not  only  where  the  source 
of  supply,  as  in  the  cases  of  the  Rio  Grande  and  the  Rio 
Colorado,  is  obviously  heavily  charged  with  silt  held 
in  suspension,  but  with  almost  equal  ardor  in  cases 
where  the  water  flows,  a  stream  of  limpid  crystal,  di- 
rectly from  the  mountain-side,  or  gushes  impetuously 
from  the  earth  in  artesian  outpourings. 

That  the  famous  river  Nile  does,  indeed,  leave  a  thin 
deposit  of  rich  soil  upon  each  subsidence  of  its  annual 
flood  our  California  scientist  does  not,  of  course,  deny. 
He  proves,  however,  that  this  layer  of  new  soil  is  only  of 
the  thickness  of  common  cardboard — one-twenty-fifth  of 
an  inch — and  is  equal  to  only  about  two  good  two-horse 
loads  per  acre.  Three  times  as  much  stable  manure  is 
the  usual  dressing  for  an  acre.  He  truly  observes  that 
as  the  sediment  is  merely  rich  soil,  thousands  of  farmers 
could  readily  haul  and  spread  such  fertilizer  upon  their 
land,  and  would  doubtless  do  so  if  they  could  thereby 
duplicate  the  phenomenal  fertility  of  the  Nile  country. 
He  clinches  his  argument  by  showing  that  the  neighbor- 
ing province  of  Fayoom,  in  the  Libyan  Desert,  shares 
the  perpetual  fertility  of  the  Nile  district,  though  irri- 
gated only  with  the  clear  waters  of  Lake  Moeris ;  that 
the  regur  lands  of  the  Deccan,  in  south-central  In- 
dia, have  been  phenomenally  productive  for  thousands 
of  years,  and  that  the  loess  region  of  China,  drained 
by  the  headwaters  of  the  Yellow  river,  have  been  the 
granary  of  China  for  ages.     Like  the  famous  Egyptian 


THE    BLESSING    OF    ARIDITY 

provinces,  the  lands  referred  to  in  India  and  China  are 
arid  or  semi-arid,  and,  nnlike  the  Nile  Valley,  they  have 
not  been  enriched  by  sedimentry  deposits  or  fertilized 
by  irrigation. 

Hence,  Professor  Hilgard  reaches  the  somewhat  sensa- 
tional conclusion  that  the  extraordinary  fertility  which, 
by  world-wide  acknowledgment,  marks  the  valley  of  the 
Nile,  is  a  quality  inherent  in  aridity  itself.  And  he  main- 
tains his  contention  thus : 

**  Soils  are  formed  from  rocks  by  the  physical  and 
chemical  agencies  commonly  comprehended  in  the  term 
weathering,  which  includes  both  their  pulverization  and 
chemical  decomposition  by  atmospheric  action.  Both 
actions,  but  more  especially  the  chemical  one,  continue 
in  the  soil  itself ;  the  last  named  in  an  accelerated  meas- 
ure, so  as  to  give  rise  to  the  farmer's  practice  of  *  fallow- 
ing ' — that  is,  leaving  the  land  exposed  to  the  action  of 
the  air  in  a  well-tilled  but  unplanted  condition,  with  a 
view  to  increasing  the  succeeding  year's  crop  by  the  ad- 
ditional amount  of  plant-food  rendered  available,  during 
the  fallow,  from  the  soil  itself. 

"  This  weathering  process  is  accompanied  by  the 
formation  of  new  compounds  out  of  the  minerals  origin- 
ally composing  the  rock.  Some  of  these,  such  as  zeolites 
and  clay,  are' insoluble  in  water,  and  therefore  remain  in 
the  soil,  forming  a  reserve  of  plant-food  that  may  be 
drawn  upon  gradually  by  plants  ;  while  another  portion, 
containing  especially  the  compounds  of  the  alkalies — pot- 
ash and  soda — are  easily  soluble  in  water.  Where  the 
rainfall  is  abundant  these  soluble  substances  are  current- 
ly carried  into  the  country  drainage,  and  through  the 
rivers  into  the  ocean.     Among  these  are  potash,  lime, 

87 


THE    CONQUEST    OF   ARID   AMERICA 

magnesia,  sulphuric  and  a  trifle  of  phosphoric  acids. 
Where,  on  the  contrary,  the  rainfall  is  insufficient  to 
carry  the  soluble  compounds  formed  in  the  weathering 
of  the  soil-mass  into  the  country  drainage,  those  com- 
pounds must  of  necessity  remain  and  accumulate  in  the 
soil.'' 

All  this  is  perfectly  comprehensible,  even  to  the  lay 
mind.  The  valuable  ingredients  of  the  soil  which  are 
soluble  have  been  washed  out  of  the  land  in  humid  re- 
gions, Jike  our  eastern  States,  by  the  rains  of  centuries. 
On  the  other  hand,  these  elements  have  been  accumu- 
lating in  the  arid  soil  of  the  West  during  the  same  cen- 
turies. They  lie  there  now  like  an  inexhaustible  bank 
account  on  which  the  plant-life  of  the  future  may  draw 
at  will  without  danger  of  protest.  The  process  which 
created  this  rich  soil  goes  on  repeating  itself — recreating 
the  soil  season  after  season.  The  same  is  true,  of  course, 
in  the  arid  and  semi-arid  regions  of  Egypt,  India,  China, 
and  all  other  localities  that  enjoy  the  inestimable  bless- 
ing of  aridity. 

Professor  Hilgard's  conclusions  are  the  result  of  pa- 
tient investigation.  They  are  based  on  more  than  one 
thousand  analyses  of  the  soils  of  the  arid  and  the  hu- 
mid regions  of  the  United  States — of  the  West  and  the 
East.  These  analyses  demonstrated  the  following  as- 
tounding fact :  That  the  soils  of  the  arid  regions  lying 
west  of  the  one  hundredth  meridian,  when  compared 
with  the  soils  of  the  humid  region  lying  east  of  the 
Mississippi  river,  contain  on  the  average  three  times  as 
much  potash,  six  times  as  much  magnesia,  and  fourteen 
times  as  much  lime.  This  is  the  scientific  explanation 
of  the  superior  productiveness  of  the  arid  regions  of  the 

38 


THE    BLESSING    OF    ARIDITY 

West,  which  every  intelligent  observer  has  noted  and 
marvelled  to  behold. 

The  people  of  the  Blue  Grass  Region  of  Kentucky 
and  of  other  favored  localities  have  repeated  from  gen- 
eration to  generation  the  boast  that  "  a  limestone  coun- 
try is  always  a  rich  country/'  Professor  Hilgard  has 
demonstrated  that  the  average  arid  soil  is  equal  to  the 
most  phenomenal  soil  of  the  East,  while  the  soil  of  the 
arid  West  as  a  whole  is  beyond  comparison  with  that 
of  the  humid  East  as  a  whole.  He  coins  the  maxim, 
"Arid  countries  are  always  rich  countries  when  irri- 
gated,''  and  the  phrase  does  scant  justice  to  the  subject. 
It  only  remains  to  add  that  Professor  Hilgard  is  recog- 
nized as  the  foremost  expert  on  soils  in  the  West,  and 
one  of  the  first  men  in  his  profession  in  the  United 
States.  No  one  will  question  the  weight  of  his  views, 
for  they  coincide  alike  with  common-sense  and  with 
world-wide  experience  through  the  centuries.  It  cannot, 
therefore,  be  doubted  that  the  agricultural  foundation 
of  the  Far  West,  as  it  relates  to  the  soil,  is  incompar- 
ably better  ^han  any  other  part  of  the  continent. 

While  science  has  thus  furnished  a  lucid  explanation 
of  the  universal  fertility  of  arid  lands,  it  would  be  un- 
fair to  draw  the  conclusion  that  the  claims  which  have 
been  made  .concerning  the  rare  fertilizing  qualities  of 
certain  western  rivers  are  entirely  unfounded.  Nearly 
all  of  the  rivers  in  the  West  carry  more  or  less  rich  silt, 
due  to  the  fact  that  they  flow  through  treeless  regions, 
where  the  soil  is  swept  into  the  stream  by  winds  and 
sudden  torrents.  Eastern  rivers  are,  as  a  rule,  much 
clearer,  because  they  flow  through  forests  and  cultivated 
fields.     The    waters    of  the  Colorado  river  gather    an 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

enormous  qnantity  of  fertilizing  matter  in  their  long 
journey  from  the  mountains  of  Wyoming  to  the  Gulf  of 
California.  There  is  no  guesswork  in  this  instance. 
The  scientific  men  of  the  University  of  Arizona,  at  Tuc- 
son, have  made  patient  experiments,  extending  over 
many  months  of  time,  to  determine  the  actual  commer- 
cial value  of  the  fertilizer  contained  in  these  waters  and 
precipitated  on  the  land  in  the  process  of  irrigation. 
Basing  their  computation  upon  the  use  of  thirty-six 
acre-inches  of  this  water,  they  find  that  the  fertilizing 
material  so  applied  would  cost,  if  purchased  in  the  mar- 
ket, the  sum  of  nine  dollars  and  seven  cents  per  acre. 
Where  such  conditions  prevail  cultivation  can  never  im- 
poverish, but  actually  enriches,  the  fortunate  soil.  But 
we  have  yet  to  mention  the  chief  blessing  of  aridity. 
This  is  the  fact  that  it  compels  the  use  of  irrigation. 
And  irrigation  is  a  miracle  ! 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  MIRACLE  OF  IRRIGATION 

The  beauty  of  Damascus  is  the  theme  of  poets.  Speak- 
ing of  this  ancient  capital  an  anonymons  writer  remarks 
that  '*the  cause  of  its  importance  as  a  city  in  all  the  ages 
is  easily  seen  as  you  approach  it  from  the  south.  Miles 
before  you  see  the  mosques  of  the  modern  city  the  foun- 
tains of  a  copious  and  perennial  stream  spring  from  among 
the  rocks  and  brushwood  at  the  base  of  the  Anti-Leba- 
non, creating  a  wide  area  about  them,  rich  with  prolific 
vegetation."    He  continues: 

'*  These  are  the  *  streams  of  Lebanon,'  which  are  poeti- 
cally spoken  of  in  the  Songs  of  Solomon,  and  the  *  rivers 
of  Damascus,'  which  Naaman,  not  unnaturally,  preferred 
to  all  the  'waters  of  Israel.'  This  stream,  with  its  many 
branches,  is  the  inestimable  treasure  of  Damascus.  While 
the  desert  is  a  fortification  round  Damascus,  the  river, 
where  the  habitations  of  men  must  always  have  been 
gathered,  as  along  the  Nile,  is  its  life. 

"The  city,  which  is  situated  in  a  wilderness  of  gardens 
of  flowers  and  fruits,  has  rushing  through  its  streets  the 
limpid  and  refreshing  current ;  nearly  every  dwelling  has 
its  fountain,  and  at  night  the  lights  are  seen  flashing  on 
the  waters  that  dash  along  from  their  mountain  home. 
As  you  first  view  the  city  from  one  of  the  overhanging 

41 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

ridges  you  are  prepared  to  excuse  the  Mohammedans  for 
calling  it  the  earthly  paradise.  Around  the  marble 
minarets,  the  glittering  domes,  and  the  white  buildings, 
shining  with  ivory  softness,  a  maze  of  bloom  and  fruit- 
age— where  olive  and  pomegranate,  orange  and  apricot, 
plum  and  walnut,  mingle  their  varied  tints  of  green — is 
presented  to  the  sight,  in  striking  contrast  to  the  miles 
of  barren  desert  over  which  you  have  just  ridden/' 

This  is  the  miracle  of  irrigation  in  the  Syrian  desert. 
It  is  no  more  miraculous  in  that  far-eastern  country  than 
in  our  own  West.  Nor  is  Damascus  more  beautiful  than 
Denver,  Salt  Lake  City,  or  than  any  one  of  a  score  of 
modern  towns  in  California.  But  because  Damascus  is 
ancient  and  historic,  and  looks  down  on  mankind  from 
the  biblical  past,  it  possesses  a  degree  of  interest  with 
which  it  is  difficult  to  invest  much  better  and  more  im- 
portant places  of  our  own  country  and  our  own  time.  It 
is  well,  then,  to  remember  that  not  only  the  beauty  of 
Damascus,  but  the  glories  of  the  Garden  of  Eden  itself, 
were  products  of  irrigation.  '*  A  river  went  out  of  Eden 
to  water  the  Garden,"  says  the  Bible  story. 

No  consideration  of  the  subject  can  be  appreciative 
when  it  starts  with  the  narrow  view  that  irrigation  is 
merely  an  adjunct  to  agriculture.  It  is  a  social  and  in- 
dustrial factor,  in  a  much  broader  sense.  It  not  only 
makes  it  possible  for  a  civilization  to  rise  and  flourish  in 
the  midst  of  desolate  wastes ;  it  shapes  and  colors  that 
civilization  after  its  own  peculiar  design.  It  is  not 
merely  the  life-blood  of  the  field,  but  the  source  of  in- 
stitutions. These  wider  and  more  subtle  influences  are 
difficult  to  define  in  abstract  terms,  but  we  may  trace 
them  clearly  through  the  history  of  various  commu- 

42 


THE    MIRACLE    OF    IRRIGATION 

nities  which  have  grown  up  in  conformity  with  these 
conditions. 

The  essence  of  the  industrial  life  which  springs  from 
irrigation  is  its  democracy.  The  first  great  law  which 
irrigation  lays  down  is  this  :  There  shall  be  no  monopoly 
of  land.  This  edict  it  enforces  by  the  remorseless  opera- 
tion of  its  own  economy.  Canals  must  be  built  before 
water  can  be  conducted  upon  the  land.  This  entails  ex- 
pense, either  of  money  or  of  labor.  What  is  expensive 
cannot  be  had  for  naught.  Where  water  is  the  founda- 
tion of  prosperity  it  becomes  a  precious  thing,  to  be 
neither  cheaply  acquired  not  wantonly  wasted.  Like  a 
city's  provisions  in  a  siege,  it  is  a  thing  to  be  carefully 
husbanded,  to  be  fairly  distributed  according  to  men's 
needs,  to  be  wisely  expended  by  those  who  receive  it. 
For  these  reasons  men  cannot  acquire  as  much  irrigated 
land,  even  from  the  public  domain,  as  they  could  acquire 
where  irrigation  was  unnecessary.  It  is  not  only  more 
difficult  to  acquire  in  large  bodies,  but  yet  more  difficult 
to  retain.  A  large  farm  under  irrigation  is  a  misfortune; 
a  great  farm,  a  calamity.  Only  the  small  farm  pays. 
But  this  small  farm  blesses  its  proprietor  with  industrial 
independence  and  crowns  him  with  social  equality.  That 
is  democracy. 

Industrial  independence  is,  in  simplest  terms,  the  guar- 
antee of  subsistence  from  one's  own  labors.  It  is  the 
ability  to  earn  a  living  under  conditions  which  admit  of 
the  smallest  possible  element  of  doubt  with  the  least 
possible  dependence  upon  others.  Irrigation  fully  satis- 
fies this  definition. 

The  canal  is  an  insurance  policy  against  loss  of  crops 
by   drought,  while  aridity   is  a   substantial  guarantee 

43 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

against  injury  by  flood.  Of  all  the  advantages  of  irriga- 
tion, this  is  the  most  obvious.  Scarcely  less  so,  how- 
ever, is  its  compelling  power  in  the  matter  of  produc- 
tion. Probably  there  is  no  spot  of  land  in  the  United 
States  where  the  average  crop  raised  by  dependence  upon 
rainfall  might  not  be  doubled  by  intelligent  irrigation. 
The  rich  soils  of  the  arid  region  produce  from  four  to 
ten  times  as  largely  with  irrigation  as  the  soil  of  the 
humid  region  without  it.  As  the  measure  of  value  is 
not  area,  but  productive  capacity,  twenty  acres  in  the  Far 
West  should  equal  one  hundred  acres  elsewhere.  Such 
is  the  actual  fact. 

A  little  further  on  we  shall  see  that  not  merely  the 
quantity  of  crops,  but  their  quality  as  well,  responds  to 
the  influence  of  irrigation.  We  shall  see  how  this  art 
favors  the  production  of  the  wide  diversity  of  products 
required  for  a  generous  living.  Certainty,  abundance, 
variety — all  this  upon  an  area  so  small  as  to  be  within 
the  control  of  a  single  family  through  its  own  labor — 
are  the  elements  which  compose  industrial  independence 
under  irrigation.  The  conditions  which  prevail  where 
irrigation  is  not  necessary — large  farms,  hired  labor,  a 
strong  tendency  to  the  single  crop — are  here  reversed. 
Intensive  cultivation  and  diversifled  production  are  in- 
separably related  to  irrigation.  These  constitute  a  sys- 
tem of  industry  the  fruit  of  which  is  a  class  of-  small 
landed  proprietors  resting  upon  a  foundation  of  eco- 
nomic independence. 

This  is  the  miracle  of  irrigation  on  its  industrial  side. 

As  a  factor  in  the  social  life  of  the  civilization  it  cre- 
ates, irrigation  is  no  less  influential  and  beneficent. 
Compared  with  the  familiar  conditions  of  country  life 

44 


THE    MIRACLE    OF    IRRIGATION 

which  we  have  known  in  the  East  and  central  West,  the 
change  which  irrigation  brings  amounts  to  a  revolution. 
The  bane  of  rural  life  is  its  loneliness.  Even  food, 
shelter,  and  provision  for  old  age  do  not  furnish  protec- 
tion against  social  discontent  where  the  conditions  deny 
the  advantages  which  flow  from  human  association. 
Better  a  servant  in  the  town  than  a  proprietor  in  the 
country! — such  has  been  the  verdict  of  recent  genera- 
tions who  have  grown  up  on  the  farm  and  left  it  to  seek 
satisfaction  for  their  social  instincts  in  the  life  of  the 
town.  The  starvation  of  the  soul  is  almost  as  real  as 
the  starvation  of  the  body. 

Irrigation  compels  the  adoption  of  the  small-farm 
unit.  This  is  the  germ  of  new  social  possibilities,  and 
we  shall  see  to  what  extent  they  have  already  been  real- 
ized as  we  proceed.  During  the  first  and  second  eras  of 
colonization  in  this  country  the  favorite  size  for  a  farm 
was  about  four  hundred  acres,  of  which  from  a  fourth 
to  a  half  was  gradually  cleared  and  the  rest  retained  in 
woodland.  The  Mississippi  Valley  was  settled  mostly  in 
quarter-sections,  containing  one  hundred  and  sixty  acres 
each.  The  productive  capacity  of  land  is  so  largely  in- 
creased by  irrigation,  and  the  amount  which  one  family 
can  cultivate  by  its  own  labor  consequently  so  much  re- 
duced, that  the  small-farm  unit  is  a  practical  necessity 
in  the  arid  region. 

Where  settlement  has  been  carried  out  upon  the 
most  enlightened  lines  irrigated  farms  range  from  five 
to  twenty  acres  upon  the  average,  rarely  exceeding  forty 
acres  at  the  maximum.  It  is  perfectly  obvious,  of 
course,  that  a  twenty-acre  unit  means  that  neighbors 
will  be  eight  times  as  numerous  as  in  a  country  settled 

45 


THE    CONQUEST   OF    ARID    AMERICA 

up  in  quarter-sections — that  where  farms  are  ten  acres 
in  size  neighbors  will  be  multiplied  by  sixteen.  Thus 
in  its  most  elementary  aspect  the  society  of  the  arid  re- 
gion differs  materially  from  that  of  a  country  of  large 
farms.  Eight  or  sixteen  families  upon  a  quarter-section 
are  much  better  than  no  neighbors  at  all,  but  irrigation 
goes  further  than  this  in  revolutionizing  the  social  side 
of  rural  life. 

A  very-small -farm  unit  makes  it  possible  for  those  who 
till  the  soil  to  live  in  the  town.  The  farm  village,  or 
home  centre,  is  a  well-established  feature  of  life  in  Arid 
America,  and  a  feature  which  is  destined  to  enjoy  wide 
and  rapid  extension.  Each  four  or  five  thousand  acres 
of  cultivated  land  will  sustain  a  thrifty  and  beautiful 
hamlet,  where  all  the  people  may  live  close  together 
and  enjoy  most  of  the  social  and  educational  advantages 
within  the  reach  of  the  best  eastern  town.  Their  chil- 
dren will  have  kindergartens  as  well  as  schools,  and  pub- 
lic libraries  and  reading-rooms  as  well  as  churches.  The 
farm  village,  lighted  by  electricity,  furnished  with  domes- 
tic water  through  pipes,  served  with  free  postal  delivery, 
and  supplied  with  its  own  daily  newspapers  at  morning 
and  evening,  has  already  been  realized  in  Arid  America. 
The  great  cities  of  the  western  valleys  will  not  be  cities 
in  the  old  sense,  but  a  long  series  of  beautiful  villages, 
connected  by  lines  of  electric  motors,  which  will  move 
their  products  and  people  from  place  to  place.  In  this 
scene  of  intensely  cultivated  land,  rich  with  its  bloom 
and  fruitage,  with  its  spires  and  roofs,  and  with  its  car- 
pets of  green  and  gold  stretching  away  to  the  mountains, 
it  will  be  difficult  for  the  beholder  to  say  where  the  town 
ends  and  the  country  begins. 

46 


y.  ^ 

U    o 

<      % 


I 


THE    MIRACLE    OF    IRRIGATION 


This  is  the  miracle  of  irrigation  upon  its  social  side. 
Irrigation  is  the  foundation  of  truly  scientific  agricult- 
ure.    Tilling  the  soil  by  dependence  upon  rainfall  is,  by 
comparison,  like  a  stage-coach  to  the  railroad,  like  the 
tallow  dip  to  the  electric  light.     The  perfect  conditions 
[for  scientific  agriculture  would  be  presented  by  a  place 
where  it  never  rained,  but  where  a  system  of  irrigation 
furnished  a  never-failing  water  supply  which  could  be 
adjusted  to  the  varying  needs  of  different  plants.     It  is 
difl&cult  for  those  who  have  been  in  the  habit  of  thinking 
of  irrigation  as  merely  a  substitute  for  rain  to  grasp  the 
[truth  that  precisely  the  contrary  is  the  case.     Rain  is  the 
[poor  dependence  of  those  who  cannot  obtain  the  advan- 
tages of  irrigation.     The  western  farmer  who  has  learned 
to  irrigate  thinks  it  would  be  quite  as  illogical  for  him 
[to  leave  the  watering  of  his  potato-patch  to  the  caprice 
>f  the  clouds  as  for  the  housewife  to  defer  her  wash-day 
intil  she  could  catch  rain-water  in  her  tubs. 
The  supreme  advantage  of  irrigation  consists  not  more 
[in  the  fact  that  it  assures  moisture  regardless  of  the 
weather  than  in  the  fact  that  it  makes  it  possible  to  ap- 
ply that  moisture  just  when  and  just  where  it  is  needed. 
For  instance,  on  some  cloudless  day  the  strawberry-patch 
looks  thirsty  and  cries  for  water  through  the  unmistak- 
able language  of  its  leaves.     In  the  Atlantic  States  it 
probably  would  not  rain  that  day,  such  is  the  perversity 
[of  nature,  but  if  it  did  it  would  rain  alike  on  the  just 
ind  unjust — on  the  strawberries,  which  would  be  bene- 
ited  by  it,  and  on  the  sugar-beets,  which  crave  only  the 
ininterrupted  sunshine  that  they  may  pack  their  tiny 
teells  with  saccharine  matter.     In  the  arid  region  there  is 
practically  no  rain  during  the  growing  season.    Thus  the 

47 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

scientific  farmer  sends  the  water  from  his  canal  through 
the  little  furrows  which  divide  the  lines  of  strawberry 
plants,  but  permits  the  water  to  go  singing  past  his  field 
of  beets. 

Plants  and  trees  require  moisture  as  well  as  sunshine 
and  soil,  and  for  three  reasons :  first,  that  the  tiny  roots 
may  extract  the  chemical  qualities  from  the  soil;  then, 
that  there  may  be  sap  and  juice;  finally,  that  there  may 
be  moisture  to  evaporate  or  transpire  from  the  leaves. 
But  while  all  plant- life  requires  moisture,  all  kinds  of  it 
do  not  require  the  same  amount,  nor  do  they  desire  to 
receive  it  at  the  same  time  and  in  the  same  manner. 
Just  as  the  skilful  teacher  studies  the  individualities  of 
fifty  different  boys,  endeavoring  to  discover  how  he  may 
most  wisely  vary  his  methods  to  obtain  the  best  results 
from  each,  so  the  scientific  farmer  studies  his  fifty  differ- 
ent plants  or  trees  and  adjusts  his  artificial  *' rainfall" 
in  the  way  which  will  produce  the  highest  outcome. 
With  the  aid  of  colleges,  experimental  farms,  and  county 
institutes,  wonderful  progress  has  been  made  along  these 
lines  in  recent  years.  This  progress  will  continue  until 
the  agriculture  and  horticulture  practised  on  the  little 
farms  of  Arid  America  shall  match  the  marvellous  re- 
sults won  by  research  and  inventive  genius  in  every  other 
field  of  human  endeavor. 

This  is  the  miracle  of  irrigation  upon  its  scientific 
side.* 

♦For  full  explanation  of  practical  methods  of  irrigation,  see 
Appendix. 


I 


part  Second 
REAL    UTOPIAS    OF    THE    ARID    WEST 

"  At  every  new  stage  of  the  history  of  the  American  settlement, 
we  are  afresh  reminded  that  colonies  are  planted  by  the  uneasy. 
The  discontent  that  comes  from  poverty  and  financial  reverse,  that 
which  is  born  of  political  unrest,  and  that  which  has  no  other  cause 
than  feverish  thirst  fur  novelty  and  hazardous  adventure,  had  each 
a  share  in  impelling  Englishmen  to  emigrate.  But  in  the  seven- 
teenth century  religion  was  the  dominant  concern — one  might  al- 
most say  the  dominant  passion — of  the  English  race,  and  it  supplied 
much  the  most  efficient  motive  to  colonization.  Not  only  did  it 
propel  men  to  America,  but  it  acted  as  a  distributing  force  on  this 
side  of  the  sea,  producing  secondary  colonies  by  expelling  from  a 
new  plantation  the  discontented  and  the  persecuted  to  make  fresh 
breaks  in  the  wilderness  for  new  settlements." — Edwabd  Eqgle- 
STON,  Beginnerg  of  a  Natian. 


CHAPTER  I 
THE  MORMON   COMMONWEALTH 

To  study  the  human  side  of  things  in  the  arid  region 
of  the  Far  West,  we  must  begin  with  the  Mormon  Com- 
monwealth of  Utah.  This  is  true  for  a  number  of  excel- 
lent reasons.  We  find  here  the  eariiest  development  of 
any  consequence.  Although  irrigation  is  older  than  his- 
tory, it  was  never  practised  upon  any  considerable  scale 
by  Anglo-Saxons  until  the  Mormon  pioneers  turned  the 
waters  of  City  Creek  upon  the  alkaline  soil  of  Salt  Lake 
Valley  in  the  summer  of  1847. 

In  Utah,  almost  alone  of  the  far-western  States,  settle- 
ment began  with  home-making  pure  and  simple.  Irriga- 
tion was  the  primal  and  single  industry  until  a  common- 
wealth had  been  established.  In  California,  in  Colorado, 
in  Nevada,  in  Idaho,  and  in  Montana,  mining,  rather 
than  agriculture,  was  the  motive  which  induced  the  or- 
iginal settlement  by  Americans,  and  irrigation  grew  up 
only  as  an  adjunct  to  the  mining  camp.  In  Wyoming, 
and  in  a  less  degree  elsewhere,  stock-raising  was  the  first 
pursuit  and  irrigation  was  used  merely  to  flood  the  bot- 
tom land  and  grow  crops  of  coarse,  wild  hay  for  the  win- 
ter feeding  of  cattle.  In  Washington  and  Oregon  the 
first  settlements  were  made  along  the  humid  coast  re- 
gion, and  the  arid  parts  of  those  States  were  settled,  in 

51 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

snch  measure  as  they  have  been  settled  at  all,  by  the 
overflow  of  those  original  currents  of  population.  But 
in  Utah  the  motive  was  home-building,  and  the  pursuit 
was  agriculture  for  its  own  sake. 

Furthermore,  we  find  in  Utah,  and  nowhere  else,  an 
entire  and  distinct  people,  who  have  grown  up  under  one 
strong  and  simple  industrial  system,  and  have  brought 
that  system  to  its  logical  results.  This  experience  covers 
half  a  century,  and  cannot  be  objected  to  on  the  ground 
that  it  is  an  experiment,  the  results  of  which  remain  to 
be  demonstrated. 

Finally,  partly  because  of  these  several  reasons  and 
partly  because  the  Mormon  fugitives  possessed  no  capital 
except  their  leader^s  brains  and  their  own  hard  hands, 
the  economic  institutions  of  Utah  are  the  natural  out- 
growth of  the  conditions  of  an  arid  land.  Utah  is  the 
product  of  its  environment.  As  we  study  it  we  shall 
see  the  economic  tendencies  underlying  and  shaping  the 
industrial  life  of  all  communities  which  find  their  life- 
current  in  the  irrigation  canal  and  are  surrounded  by 
the  rich  and  varied,  but  wholly  undeveloped,  resources 
of  our  far-western  country.  It  is  for  these  reasons  that 
the  Mormon  Commonwealth  suggests  itself  irresistibly 
as  the  starting-point  of  any  proper  study  of  our  subject. 

What  did  the  pioneers  have  to  start  with  ?  What  have 
they  accomplished  in  fifty  years  ?  How  did  they  do  it  ? 
In  the  answers  to  these  questions  we  may  find  a  fiood  of 
light  for  the  future  of  the  West,  but  only  upon  condition 
that  the  answers  be  sought  in  a  spirit  of  perfect  candor 
and  without  prejudice  either  in  favor  of  or  against  the 
interesting  people  of  the  Utah  mountains. 

On  July  24,  1847,  the  Mormon  caravan  emerged  from 


J 


THE    MORMON    COMMONWEALTH 

the  mouth  of  Emigration  Canyon  into  the  valley  of  the 
Great  Salt  Lake.  It  was  a  beautiful  picture  that  greeted 
the  eyes  of  the  fugitives  as  they  rested  here  to  enjoy  the 
shade  of  the  cottonwoods  and  listen  to  the  music  of  the 
mountain  torrent  and  the  birds.  Out  of  the  chill  air  of 
the  higher  altitudes,  out  of  the  dark  shadows  of  the 
picturesque  chasm,  they  had  come  by  a  sudden  turn 
face  to  face  with  a  broad,  sunlit  valley,  which  sloped 
gently  away  to  the  shore  of  an  inland  sea.  On  the  east, 
the  Wasatch  mountains  reared  their  brown  and  rifted  bar- 
riers until  their  summits  were  lost  in  a  crown  of  eternal 
snows.  To  the  south  and  west  the  Oquirrhs  marshalled 
their  peaks  into  the  waters  of  the  lake.  Below  them, 
valley  and  lake  ;  around  them  on  every  side,  mountains 
and  more  mountains ;  over  them,  the  impalpable  sky — 
this  was  the  vision  which  burst  suddenly  upon  the  tired 
eyes  of  the  pilgrims. 

When  they  had  proceeded  a  little  farther  they  caught 
sight  of  a  large  fresh  lake  some  miles  to  the  south,  emp- 
tying its  surplus  waters  into  an  inland  sea  through  a 
slender  river,  which  shone  like  a  ribbon  of  silver.  The 
comparison  suggested  by  these  strange  conditions  might 
have  occurred  to  a  duller  mind  than  that  of  Brigham 
Young,  who  felt  that  he  was  a  Moses  leading  a  new  tribe 
of  Israel  to  a  new  promised  land.  The  fresh  lake  was 
the  sea  of  Tiberius ;  the  salt  one,  the  Dead  Sea ;  the 
river  was,  of  course,  the  Jordan.  This,  then,  was  the 
new  Palestine,  and  here  the  leader  and  his  followers 
would  build  the  new  Jerusalem  !  Advancing  a  few 
miles  into  the  valley,  and  halting  near  the  banks  of  a 
roaring  brook,  Brigham  Young  struck  his  staff  upon  the 
ground  and  exclaimed,  *^  Here  we  will  rear  our  temple  in 

53 


THE    CONQUEST    OF   ARID    AMERICA 

holiness  to  the  Lord."  It  is  above  this  spot  that  Sculp- 
tor Dallin's  graceful  figure  of  the  Angel  Moroni  now 
looks  down  from  a  stately  pile  of  Utah  granite,  reared 
at  a  cost  of  forty  years'  labor  and  six  million  dollars. 

The  pioneers  possessed  very  little  cash  capital  when 
they  arrived  in  the  valley  which  was  to  be  the  heart  of  a 
future  commonwealth.  This  was  not  a  serious  misfort- 
une, since  there  was  little  that  money  would  buy  in 
Utah  at  that  time,  or  anywhere  within  one  thousand 
miles  east,  west,  north,  or  south.  They  had  located  at 
almost  the  exact  geographical  centre  of  that  great  arid 
region  whose  modern  agricultural  era  they  were  destined 
to  inaugurate.  Surrounded  by  extraordinary  wealth, 
there  was  but  one  thing  which  could  pass  current  as  a 
medium  of  exchange  in  this  primeval  wilderness.  This 
one  thing  was  labor,  and  the  free  and  unlimited  coinage 
of  labor  has  been  the  cardinal  doctrine  in  Utah's  econom- 
ic faith  from  the  beginning  down  to  the  present  hour. 
Besides  their  willing  industry,  the  Mormons  had  brought 
with  them  the  contents  of  seventy-two  wagons,  about 
one  hundred  horses,  less  than  half  as  many  mules  and 
oxen,  nineteen  cows  and  a  few  chicken.  It  was  with  this 
capital  that  they  began  the  making  of  Utah.  But  at  the 
very  threshold  of  their  life  in  a  new  country  they  were 
confronted  by  something  utterly  strange  to  them  in  the 
conditions  of  agriculture. 

First  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race,  the  Mormons  encount- 
ered the  problem  of  aridity,  and  discovered  that  its  suc- 
cessful solution  was  the  price  of  existence.  Brigham 
Young  had  lived  in  Vermont,  Ohio,  Missouri,  and  Il- 
linois. Neither  he  nor  any  of  his  followers  had  ever 
seen  a  country  where  the  rainfall  did  not  suffice  for  agri- 

54 


MAP  SHOWING  THE  8TKIKING  SIMILARITY  BETWEEN  PALESTINE 
AND   SALT  LAKE  VALLEY,  UTAH 

(By  courtesy  of  the  Rio  Grande  Western  R.  R.) 


THE    MORMON    COMMONWEALTH 

cultnre,  nor  ever  read  of  one  save  in  the  Bible.  But 
they  qnickly  learned  that  they  had  staked  their  whole 
f ntnre  upon  a  region  which  could  not  produce  a  spear  of 
tame  grass,  an  ear  of  corn,  nor  a  kernel  of  wheat  with- 
out skilful  irrigation.  Of  the  art  of  irrigation  they 
were  utterly  ignorant.  But  the  need  of  beginning  a 
planting  was  urgent  and  pressing,  for  their  slender  stock 
of  provisions  would  not  long  protect  them  from  starva- 
tion. 

It  was  this  emergency  which  produced  the  first  irriga- 
tion canal  ever  built  by  white  men  in  the  United  States. 
Mormons  are  prone  to  believe  that  the  suggestion  of  this 
work  was  a  revelation  from  God  to  the  head  of  the 
Church.  Other  traditions  ascribe  it  to  the  advice  of 
friendly  Indians  ;  to  the  example  of  the  Mexicans ;  to 
the  shrewd  intuition  with  which  the  leader  had  met  all 
the  trials  encountered  in  the  course  of  his  adventurous 
pilgrimage.  Whatever  the  source  of  the  inspiration,  he 
quickly  set  his  men  at  work  to  divert  the  waters  of  City 
Creek  through  a  i*ude  ditch  and  to  prepare  the  ground 
for  Utah's  first  farm.  These  crystal  waters  now  furnish 
the  domestic  supply  for  a  city  of  sixty  thousand  inhabi- 
tants. The  late  President  Wilford  Woodruff,  who  was 
one  of  the  party  assigned  to  the  work  of  digging  the  first 
canal,  related  that  when  the  water  was  turned  out  upon 
the  desert  the  soil  was  so  hard  that  the  point  of  a  plough 
would  scarcely  penetrate  it.  There  was  also  much  white 
alkali  on  the  surface.  It  was,  therefore,  with  no  absolute 
conviction  of  success  that  the  pioneers  planted  the  very 
last  of  their  stock  of  potatoes  and  awaited  the  result  of 
the  experiment.  The  crop  prospered  in  spite  of  all  ob- 
stacles, and  demonstrated  that  a  living  could  be  wrung 

55 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

from  the  forbidding  soil  of  the  desert  when  men  should 
learn  to  adapt  their  industry  to  the  conditions. 

Such  was  the  humble  beginning  of  modern  agriculture 
in  Arid  America.  The  success  of  this  desperate  expedi- 
ent to  preserve  the  existence  of  a  fugitive  people  in  the 
vast  solitude  has  made  Utah  our  classic  land  of  irrigation, 
and  given  the  Mormons  their  just  claim  as  the  pioneer 
irrigators  of  the  United  States.  It  was  not,  however, 
until  they  survived  other  hardships,  including  the  devas- 
tation of  their  first  crops  by  swarms  of  crickets,  that  the 
hardy  settlers  were  able  to  celebrate  a  genuine  harvest- 
home,  and  to  feel  that  the  ground  was  at  last  firm  be- 
neath their  feet.  Then  began  that  long  era  of  material 
prosperity  which  will  never  cease  until  the  people  depart 
from  the  industrial  system  established  by  Brigham 
Young. 

It  is  this  industrial  system  which  makes  the  Mormons 
well  worthy  of  study  at  this  time.  Nothing  just  like  it 
exists  elsewhere  upon  any  considerable  scale,  yet  its 
leading  principles  are  certainly  capable  of  general  appli- 
cation. Good  Mormons  regard  the  system,  like  all  their 
blessings,  as  a  direct  revelation  of  God.  Many  others 
consider  it  the  intellectual  product  of  a  great  man's 
brain.  But  when  it  is  studied  in  connection  with  Mor- 
mon colonization,  it  is  plain  that  the  system  was  born  of 
the  necessities  of  the  place  and  time — that  it  is  the  legit- 
imate product  of  the  peculiar  environment  of  the  arid 
region.  The  forces  that  have  made  the  civilization  of 
Utah  will  make  the  civilization  of  western  America.  It 
is  in  this  view  of  the  matter  that  we  shall  find  our  justi- 
fication for  a  careful  study  of  the  Mormon  structure  of 
industry  and  society. 

56 


THE    MORMON    COMMONWEALTH 

The  economic  life  of  Utah  is  founded  on  the  general 
ownership  of  land.  Speaking  broadly,  all  are  proprie- 
tors, none  are  tenants.  Land  monopoly  was  discounte- 
nanced from  the  beginning.  All  were  encouraged  to 
take  so  much  land  as  they  could  apply  to  a  beneficial 
purpose.  None  were  permitted  to  secure  land  merely  to 
hold  it  out  of  use  for  speculation.  The  corner-stone  of 
the  system  was  industrialism — the  theory  that  all  should 
work  for  what  they  were  to  have,  and  that  all  should 
have  what  they  had  worked  for.  In  order  to  realize 
this  result,  it  was  necessary  that  each  family  should  own 
as  much  land  as  it  could  use  to  advantage,  and  no  more. 

The  adoption  of  this  principle  was  plainly  due  to  the 
peculiar  conditions  which  the  leader  saw  about  him.  He 
instantly  realized  that  value  resided  in  water  rather  than 
in  land ;  that  there  was  much  more  land  than  water ; 
that  water  could  only  be  conserved  and  distributed  at 
great  expense. 

If  he  had  settled  in  a  land  of  abundant  rainfall  it  is 
improbable  that  he  would  have  set  such  severe  limitations 
upon  the  amount  of  land  which  individuals  should  ac- 
quire. In  that  case  he  would,  perhaps,  have  thought  it 
well  for  his  people  to  take  all  the  land  they  could  possibly 
obtain  under  the  law,  and  thus  enjoy  large  speculative 
possibilities.  But  if  he  had  pursued  this  policy  in  Utah 
he  could  not  have  accommodated  the  thousands  whom 
he  expected  to  follow  him  in  the  early  future.  He  thus 
found  it  imperatively  necessary  to  restrict  the  amount  of 
land  which  each  family  should  acquire,  suiting  it  to  their 
actual  needs.  He  came  from  a  country  which  had  been 
settled  in  farms  ranging  from  two  hundred  to  four  hun- 
dred  acres  in   size.     The  reduction  in  the  farm  unit 

57 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

which  he  now  proposed  must  have  seemed  nothing  less 
than  startling  to  his  followers.  It  is  plain  that  in  pro- 
posing such  an  innovation  he  not  only  comprehended  the 
social  necessities  of  the  situation,  hut  anticipated,  with 
remarkable  foresight,  the  possibilities  of  intensive  agri- 
culture by  means  of  irrigation. 

The  first  settlement  which  he  planned  was,  of  course, 
Salt  Lake  City  and  its  neighborhood.  This  became  the 
model  of  all  future  colonies.  It  was  laid  out  in  such  a 
way  as  to  secure  an  equitable  division  of  land  values 
among  all  the  inhabitants. 

The  city  blocks  consist  of  ten  acres  each,  divided  into 
eight  lots  of  one  and  a  quarter  acres.  These  lots  were 
assigned  to  professional  and  business  men.  Next  there 
was  a  tier  of  five-acre  lots.  These  were  assigned  to  me- 
chanics. Then  there  were  tiers  of  ten-acre  and  of  twenty- 
acre  lots.  These  went  to  farmers,  according  to  the  size 
of  their  families.  Under  this  arrangement  every  colon- 
ist was  a  small  landed  proprietor,  owning  a  certain 
amount  of  irrigated  soil  from  which  he  could  readily  pro- 
duce the  necessities  of  life.  The  division  of  land  values 
was  remarkably  even,  for  what  one  man  lacked  in 
area  of  his  possessions  he  gained  in  location.  The  small 
lots  were  close  to  the  centre  of  business ;  the  large  lots 
more  remote  from  that  centre.  As  the  place  grew  in 
course  of  years  from  an  emigrants'  camp  to  a  populous 
city,  with  paved  streets,  domestic  water,  electric  lights, 
and  railways,  the  inevitable  rise  in  values  was  distributed 
with  remarkably  even  hand.  Not  a  single  family  or  indi- 
vidual failed  to  share  in  the  great  fund  of  *'  unearned 
increment ''  which  arose  from  increasing  population  and 
growing  public  improvements. 

58 


THE    MORMON    COMMONWEALTH 

This  principle  of  universal  land  ownership,  and  of  care- 
ful division  according  to  location  and  of  differing  needs 
of  various  classes,  has  been  followed  throughout  the 
Mormon  settlements  of  Utah  and  surrounding  States, 
and  is  being  duplicated  to-day  in  the  latest  colonies  es- 
tablished by  this  people. 

It  is  important  to  note  that  the  Mormon  land  system 
rested  on  individual  proprietorship.  There  never  was 
any  attempt  at  community  ownership.  The  unit  of  the 
State  was  the  family  and  the  home.  But  the  moment 
we  pass  from  the  sphere  of  individual  labor  we  encounter 
another  principle,  which  was  always  applied,  though  not 
always  by  the  same  methods,  to  pnblic  utilities.  This 
was  the  principle  of  public  ownership  and  control. 

If  the  Mormon  leaders  had  desired  to  organize  their 
industrial  life  in  a  way  to  make  large  private  fortunes 
for  themselves,  no  single  item  in  the  list  of  Utah's  re- 
sources would  hjjve  offered  a  better  chance  for  specula- 
tion than  the  water  supply.  It  was  perfectly  feasible 
under  the  law  for  private  individuals  or  companies  to  ap- 
propriate these  waters,  construct  canals,  sell  water  rights, 
and  collect  annual  rental.  By  adopting  this  method, 
which  widely  prevails  in  other  western  States,  they  could 
have  laid  every  field,  orchard,  and  garden — every  in- 
dividual and  family — under  tribute  to  them  and  their 
descendants  forever.  Neither  in  law  nor  in  practice,  at 
that  time,  was  it  any  more  a  moral  and  economic  wrong 
to  appropriate  privately  and  hold  against  the  public  the 
natural  wealth  of  the  streams  than  it  was  to  do  the  same 
with  the  natural  wealth  of  the  mineral  belts  on  govern- 
ment land. 

Probably  the  Mormons  owed  their  escape  from  the 

59 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

misfortune  of  private  irrigation  works  mostly  to  the  fact 
that  this  feature  of  their  institutions  was  established  when 
none  of  their  people  possessed  sufficient  private  capital  to 
engage  in  costly  enterprises.  They  started  upon  a  basis 
of  equality,  for  they  were  equally  poor.  They  could  buy 
water  rights  only  with  their  labor.  This  labor  they  ap- 
plied in  co-operation,  and  canal  stock  was  issued  to  each 
man  in  proportion  to  the  amount  of  work  he  had  con- 
tributed to  its  construction.  This  in  turn  was  deter- 
mined by  the  amount  of  land  he  owned,  the  owner  of 
twenty  acres  doing  just  twice  as  much  work  as  the  owner 
of  ten.  Here  we  see  the  influence  of  aridity  not  only 
favoring,  but  compelling,  the  adoption  of  the  principle 
of  associative  enterprise,  as  mentioned  in  a  previous 
chapter.  But  before  discussing  the  wider  results  of  this 
influence  in  the  life  of  Utah,  it  is  important  to  observe 
the  characteristic  forms  of  agriculture  which  grew  out 
of  these  new  conditions. 

We  have  seen  that  Brigham  Young  had  made  twenty 
acres  the  maximum  size  of  farms  in  the  Salt  Lake  settle- 
ment. He  now  proceeded  to  lay  down  a  philosophy  very 
different  from  that  which  prevailed  on  the  large  farms 
of  the  wheat  and  corn  country  whence  he  had  come.  He 
urged  that  each  family  should  realize  the  nearest  possi- 
ble approach  to  absolute  industrial  independence  within 
the  boundaries  of  its  own  small  farm.  His  sermons  in 
the  tabernacle  dealt  less  in  theology  than  in  worldly  com- 
mon-sense. The  result  is  an  agricultural  system  peculiar 
to  Utah. 

Just  as  we  have  the  cotton-belt  in  Texas,  the  corn-belt 
in  Nebraska,  the  wheat-belt  in  Dakota,  and  the  orapge- 
district  in  California,  so  in  Utah  we  have  the  land  of  the 

60 


THE    MORMON    COMMONWEALTH 

diversified  farm.  This  is  the  first  and  one  of  the  most 
precious  fruits  of  the  industrialism  which  had  been  so 
deeply  rooted  in  the  plan  of  general  land  ownership. 

Much  of  the  misfortune  which  the  settlers  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi Valley  have  endured  during  the  past  decade  is 
due  to  the  fact  that  their  industrial  system  was  founded 
on  the  speculative  instinct.  They  acquired  large  farms, 
because  they  hoped  to  get  rich  out  of  the  rise  in  land^ 
They  engaged  in  the  production  of  single  crops,  because 
they  were  gambling  on  the  hope  of  great  prices  for  these 
staples.  They  mortgaged  their  homesteads  to  make 
costly  improvements,  because  they  had  the  utmost  faith 
in  future  big  prices  for  the  land  and  its  product.  It 
is  very  easy  to  comprehend  the  virtues  of  Utah  industrial- 
ism when  we  may  make  use  of  a  Texas  cotton  plantation 
or  a  Dakota  wheat  farm  for  a  background.  In  the  one 
case  we  see  the  little  unmortgaged  farm,  its  crops  in- 
sured by  irrigation,  systematically  producing  a  variety  of 
things  required  for  the  family  consumption.  A  generous 
living  is  within  the  control  of  the  proprietor  of  such  a 
home.  In  the  other  case  we  see  the  single  crop  exposed 
to  the  mercy  of  the  weather  and  the  markets,  its  owner 
employing  many  hired  hands,  and  going  to  the  town  to 
buy  with  cash  nearly  all  that  is  necessary  to  feed  his 
family  and  laborers. 

The  Utah  system  was  clearly  the  outgrowth  of  the 
peculiar  conditions  with  which  the  Mormons  dealt.  They 
were  so  far  removed  from  all  centres  of  production  as  to 
make  self-sufficiency  an  imperative  condition  of  existence. 
Hence  they  were  taught  the  gospel  of  industrial  inde- 
pendence in  its  purest  and  most  primitive  form.  And 
self-sufficiency  is  the  most  striking  characteristic  of  their 

61 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

civilization  to-day.  Wars  and  panics  have  swept  the 
country  since  the  pioneers  built  their  homes  in  Salt  Lake 
Valley,  but  they  and  theirs  have  not  gone  hungry  for  a 
day  or  an  hour.  Nor  need  they  do  so  while  water  runs 
down  hill  and  mother  earth  yields  her  increase. 

The  conquest  of  Utah  began  with  the  establishment 
of  agriculture,  which  is  everywhere  the  foundation  of 
civilization.  Brigham  Young  realized,  as  the  American 
people  may  well  do  to-day,  that  there  can  be  no  prosper- 
ity if  agriculture  languishes.  He  realized  that  whatever 
the  Mormon  people  might  have  in  the  future — whatever 
of  factories,  stores,  and  banks,  whatever  of  churches  tem- 
ples, and  tabernacles — must  come  primarily  from  the 
surplus  profits  of  the  soil. 

As  soon  as  his  people  had  been  supplied  with  food  and 
shelter,  he  turned  his  attention  to  the  development  of  a 
broader  industrial  life.  Workshops,  stores,  and  banks 
were  necessary  to  furnish  facilities  for  manufacture,  dis- 
tribution, and  exchange.  All  these  enterprises  were  un- 
dertaken in  a  co-operative  way  under  the  familiar  forms 
of  the  joint-stock  company.  Those  who  were  unwilling 
to  engage  in  them  upon  these  terms  generally  left  the 
church  and  set  up  for  themselves.  At  the  beginning 
there  was  no  capital  for  such  undertakings  except  the 
capital  which  resided  in  every  man's  land  and  labor — no 
wealth  but  the  commonwealth.  As  all  had  started  on  a 
basis  of  equality,  so  all  were  given  an  equal  chance  to 
participate  in  the  new  industrial,  mercantile,  and  bank- 
ing enterprises  of  the  Territory.  When  a  factory  or 
store  was  to  be  started  subscription  papers  were  circu- 
lated and  everybody  urged  to  take  some  of  the  stock. 
Payments  were  made  sometimes  in  cash,  more  often  in 


THE    MORMON    COMMONWEALTH 

products,  not  infrequently  in  labor.  Of  one  thing  there 
has  never  been  a  scarcity  in  Utah — this  is  the  chance  to 
work.  And  labor  has  always  been  exchangeable  there 
for  other  commodities,  including  bank  and  mercantile 
stock.  Otherwise  it  would  not  have  been  possible  to 
have  secured  anything  like  the  wide  distribution  of  these 
stocks  which  now  prevails. 

In  the  early  years  the  industries  were  of  a  crude  sort. 
Everything  had  to  be  hauled  in  ox-teams  over  a  thousand 
miles  of  deserts,  plains,  and  mountains.  The  people 
used  almost  no  money  in  their  daily  transactions.  As  a 
medium  of  exchange  they  had  printed  slips  of  paper 
known  as  "  tithing-house  scrip."  This  answered  every 
purpose  of  exchange  money,  while  the  prices  of  com- 
modities were  regulated  by  the  standard  of  values  which 
prevailed  elsewhere.  But  while  the  local  scrip  did  very 
well  for  all  home  purposes,  it  did  not  enable  the  people 
to  purchase  the  supplies  of  machinery  which  they  need- 
ed from  abroad.  The  process  of  equipping  their  factories 
was,  therefore,  necessarily  slow,  but  they  rapidly  devel- 
oped an  army  of  skilled  artisans,  which  was  constantly 
augmented  by  immigration.  But  even  without  assis- 
tance from  the  great  world  which  lay  so  far  beyond  the 
borders  of  their  own  valleys  marvellous  progress  was 
achieved  in  the  arts  and  industries. 

Brigham  Young  was  strenuously  opposed  to  the  de- 
velopment of  the  mines  by  his  people,  believing  that 
what  they  might  gain  in  wealth  from  that  source  would 
be  much  more  than  offset  by  the  demoralization  which 
would  come  to  his  industrial  forces  with  the  rise  of  the 
speculative  spirit.  Above  all  other  virtues  he  placed 
that  of  sober  industry,  earning  its  bread  in  the  sweat  of 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

men's  faces.  That  the  mines  would  some  day  be  worked 
by  "  Gentiles ''  he  had  no  doubt,  and  he  rightly  calcu- 
lated that  his  own  people  would  enjoy  more  prosperity 
by  feeding  the  miners  than  by  working  the  mines.  A 
few  of  the  many  millions  afterwards  taken  from  the 
mountains  around  Salt  Lake  would  have  facilitated  the 
growth  and  equipment  of  the  Mormon  industries  im- 
mensely during  the  early  years.  But  time  and  patience 
accomplished  in  the  end  all  —  perhaps  more  than  an 
abundance  of  original  capital  might  have  done.  Nearly 
all  the  industries  essential  to  a  complex  and  symmetrical 
business  economy  have  been  established  for  many  years. 
Every  important  settlement  has  its  co-operative  store 
and  bank.  From  the  great  beet-sugar  factory  at  Lehi 
down  to  the  smallest  mercantile  enterprise  in  the  small- 
est hamlet,  the  business  is  owned  by  a  multitude  of  stock- 
holders. 

The  capital  represents  the  surplus  profits  of  the  many. 
The  system  bears  no  likeness  to  Socialism.  Nothing  is 
owned  by  virtue  of  citizenship  nor  of  membership  in 
the  church.  No  one  owns  a  dollar's  worth  of  stock  who 
has  not  earned  and  paid  for  it.  The  system  ia  nothing 
but  the  joint-stock  company  with  what  may  be  called  a 
generous  and  friendly  interpretation.  That  ia  to  say,  it 
is  really  desired  that  everybody  shall  have  an  interest, 
and  that  all  shall  share  the  benefits.  It  should  not  be 
understood  by  any  means  that  all  have  an  equal  owner- 
ship in  these  various  enterprises,  for  the  Mormon  system 
has  not  resulted  in  making  men  equally  successful.  All 
have  had  an  equal  chance  however,  and  the  weak  have 
been  watched  over  and  assisted  by  the  strong.  In- 
deed, this  latter  is  one  of  the  few  good  results  to  be 

64 


THE    MORMON    COMMONWEALTH 

credited  to  the  exercise  of  church  authority  in  secular 
affairs. 

It  would  be  quite  impracticable  to  attempt  to  fol- 
low the  history  of  any  considerable  number  of  the  many 
co-operative  enterprises  of  Utah.  Neither  are  figures 
available  for  a  satisfactory  generalization  of  results. 
But  the  whole  system  is  typified  in  the  experience  of  one 
monumental  enterprise — Zion's  Co-operative  Mercantile 
Institution.  This  great  house  is  in  a  sense  the  mother 
and  the  model  of  all  the  Mormon  stores  iii  Utah  and  its 
surrounding  States.  Mr.  Thomas  G.  Webber,  the  suc- 
cessful superintendent  of  "Z.  C.  M.  I./'  as  it  is  famil- 
iarly called,  describes  the  history  of  the  enterprise  as 
follows : 

**  The  Institution  was  organized  October  16,  1868 ; 
commenced  business  March  1,  1869 ;  was  incorporated 
for  twenty-five  years  from  October  5,  1870,  and  the 
capital  was  then  $220,000.  It  was  reincorporated  for 
fifty  years  September  30,  1895,  with  a  capital  stock  of 
11,077,000. 

"  During  the  life  of  our  first  incorporation  period  we 
have  sold  176,352,686  worth  of  merchandise,  and  paid  to 
the  railroad  and  express  companies  for  freight  16,908,630. 

"We  have  paid  out  in  cash  dividends  $1,990,943.55, 
and  in  stock  dividends  $414,944.77.  During  the  panic 
in  1873,  for  prudential  reasons,  we  passed  our  dividend, 
and  continued  to  do  so  until  1877,  but  during  the  whole 
of  the  period  we  have  been  in  business,  some  twenty- 
seven  years,  we  have  paid  to  our  stockholders  an  average 
dividend  of  nine  and  one-third  per  cent,  for  each  and 
every  year,  or  two  hundred  and  forty-three  per  cent,  in 
all ;  $1,000  invested  in  our  capital  stock  on  the  1st  of 
B  65 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

March,  1869,  at  the  end  of  September,  1895,  when  onr 
incorporation  ran  out,  had  accumulated  to  $2,014.30, 
and  in  addition  to  this  we  have  paid  upon  this  $1,000  in 
cash  dividends  the  sum  of  $4,218.05. 

"  We  have  turned  out  in  our  manufacturing  depart- 
ments boots  and  shoes  to  the  value  of  $2,053,294.43,  and 
in  our  duck  clothing  and  shirt  factory  upwards  of 
$80,000  worth.  Last  year  (1895)  it  was  an  off-year  with 
our  manufacturing  departments,  but  we  turned  out 
75,400  pairs  of  boots  and  shoes,  and  15,648  dozen  over- 
alls, shirts,  etc." 

This  is  the  history  of  Utah's  largest  co-operative  un- 
dertaking. It  is  a  history  which  no  friend  of  co-operative 
effort  will  blush  to  read,  for  it  proves  that  a  great  busi- 
ness can  be  as  successfully  administered  in  the  interest 
of  the  many  as  in  the  interest  of  a  few.  The  latest 
and  largest  of  the  Mormon  industrial  enterprises  is  the 
beet -sugar  factory,  owned  by  seven  hundred  stock- 
holders, which  in  1895  produced  considerably  more  than 
700,000,000  pounds  of  sugar  and  paid  a  cash  dividend 
of  ten  per  cent.  Its  later  dividends  are  much  larger. 
It  also  furnished  a  profitable  market  for  the  products  of 
many  irrigated  fields. 

While  the  most  satisfactory  results  of  co-operative  en- 
terprise have  been  obtained  in  the  last  two  decades,  much 
was  achieved  in  the  early  day.  As  early  as  1850,  when 
Salt  Lake  Valley  had  been  settled  less  than  three  years, 
the  industrial  products  amounted  to  only  a  little  less 
than  three  hundred  thousand  dollars.  Ten  years  later 
they  had  mounted  nearly  to  the  million  mark,  and  in 
1870  they  considerably  exceeded  two  and  a  quarter  mill- 
ions.    In  1895  the  total  was  close  to  six  millions.     The 

66 


THE    MORMON    COMMONWEALTH 

growth  of  these  hard-won  industries  has  naturally  fos- 
tered a  feeling  of  intense  loyalty  to  home  products. 
Foreign  goods  are  not  a  badge  of  honor.  The  Utah  man 
wears  Utah  clothes,  made  in  Utah  factories,  from  wool 
sheared  from  the  back  of  Utah  sheep,  witli  the  same 
pride  that  a  New  York  man  wears  a  London  hat  and  a 
New  York  woman  a  Paris  gown. 

Let  us  look  now  at  the  broader  results  of  the  Mormon 
labor  in  the  wilderness.  The  church  historian,  Mr.  A. 
Milton  Musser,  has  made  a  careful  estimate  of  the  finan- 
cial results  which  may  fairly  be  credited  to  the  irriga- 
tion industry  in  Utah.  In  doing  so  he  communicated 
with  church  leaders  throughout  the  State  and  compiled 
the  results  of  his  correspondence  with  the  utmost  care. 
The  statement  is  given  just  as  he  prepared  it,  without 
attempt  to  discuss  it  in  detail.  To  fully  comprehend  it 
however,  the  reader  must  remember  that  the  Mormons 
began  in  poverty;  having  almost  nothing  to  invest  ex- 
cept the  labor  of  their  hands  and  brains,  and  that  all 
they  have  expended  in  a  period  of  nearly  fifty  years  for  all 
classes  of  improvements — from  the  first  shanty  to  the 
last  turret  of  the  last  temple — came  primarily  from  the 
soil.  Here  is  the  balance-sheet  of  the  Mormon  people  as 
Mr.  Musser  prepared  it : 

Cost  of  establishing  the  10,000  farms  ($187.50 

per  farm  per  annum) 175,000,000 

Cost  of  making  irrigation  canals  and  ditches 

($37.50  per  farm  per  annum) 15,000,000 

Cost  of  irrigating  10,000  farms  and  gardens 

($24.00  each  per  annum) 9,600,000 

Building  factories 5,000,000 

Building  temples 8,000,000 

67 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

Building  churches  and  schools $4,000,000 

Cost  of  missionary  work 10,000,000 

Cost  of  immigrating  and  sustaining  the  poor        8,000,000 

Living  of  the  farmers  ($875  to  each  family 

per  annum) 350,000,000 

Cost  of  roads  and  bridges  in  mountains  and 

valleys 4,000,000 

Cost  of  Indian  wars,  building  forts,  stockades, 

breaking  up  settlements,  etc 5,000,000 

Cost  of  feeding  and  clothing  Indians  and 
establishing  Indian  missions,  farms, 
schools,  etc 2,000,000 

Cost  of  resisting  the  invasion  of  the  army  of 
1857,  and  of  the  people  of  Salt  Lake 
county  and  the  counties  north  moving 
south  into  middle  and  southern  Utah 6,000,000 

Loss  sustained  by  crickets,  locusts,  and  grass- 
hoppers         2.500,000 

Unsuccessful  early  experiments  in  making 
iron,  sugar,  paper,  nails,  leather,  cotton- 
raising,  mining,  etc 6,000,000 

Cost  of  defence  against  anti-polygamy  legisla- 
tion believed  to  be  unconstitutional 3,000,000 

Heavy  freight  rates  from  the  Missouri  river 

and  the  Pacific  coast  before  the  railroads        8,000,000 

Cost  of  establishing  the  Overland  Mail  and 
Express  Company,  purchase  of  Fort 
Bridger,  and  establishment  of  Fort  Sup- 
ply, abandoned  and  afterward  absorbed 
by  the  army  of  1857 2,000,000 

Protecting  overland  travel,  succoring  and 
feeding  California,  Oregon,  and  other 
emigrants 1,500,000 

Cost  of  colonizing  Carson  and  Green  River 
counties,  abandoned  because  of  the 
army  of  1857 2,000,000 

Cost  of  establishing  colonies  on  Salmon 
68 


THE    MORMON    COMMONWEALTH 

river,  in  Lower  California,  and  the  sugar 

plantation  near  Honolulu $1,500,000 

Cost  of  local  telegraph  aad  railroad  lines 3,000,000 

Cost  of  obtaining  fuel,  and  building  and 
fencing  materials,  from  the  rugged 
mountains  and  canyons  many  miles  away  10,000,000 
Cost  of  making  settlements  on  the  Muddy, 
Call's  Landing,  Florence,  Sunset,  and 
other  localities,  afterwards  abandoned  be- 
cause of  adverse  conditions  subsequently 

developed 1,000,000 

Losses  by  fire  ($20,000  per  annum) 800,000 

Taxes 8.000,000 

Miscellaneous  expenditures 12.000,000 

$562,900,000 
Less  the  personal  property  brought  into  Utah 
by  immigrants,  such  as  cattle,  wagons, 
cash,  etc 20,000,000 

$542,900,000 

In  his  note  transmitting  these  figures  Mr.  Musser 
writes:  "The  inclosed  has  been  submitted  to  the  inspec- 
tion of  Presidents  Woodruff,  Cannon,  and  Smith,  and 
Bishops  Preston,  Burton,  and  Winder,  as  well  as  to  others 
conversant  with  such  matters.  All  agree  that  the  esti- 
mates are  as  fair  as  they  can  be  given.""  And  he  adds, 
with  a  reverence  characteristic  of  his  people:  "While 
much  of  our  prosperity  is  due  to  industrious,  temperate, 
and  frugal  habits  of  life,  yet  we  never  lose  sight  of  the 
overruling  hand  of  the  Almighty  in  all  these  results,  and 
to  Him  be  given  praise  and  thanksgiving  without  stint." 

In  a  private  letter  accompanying  these  statistics  His- 
torian Musser  directed  attention  to  the  fact  that  upon 
this  showing  each  Mormon  farmer  enjoyed  an  average 

69 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

income  of  four  hundred  and  eighty-two  dollars  above  the 
cost  of  living  for  each  of  the  more  than  forty  years  which 
the  statement  covers.  This  is  a  considerably  higher  re- 
turn than  the  gross  amount  averaged  by  wage  earners  in 
the  United  States. 

While  in  many  particulars  this  imposing  statement  of 
results  may  be  open  to  criticism,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  it  was  prepared  with  conscientious  care.  It  is  pre- 
sented here  for  what  it  may  be  worth.  To  the  writer  it 
seems  to  confirm  the  impression  of  a  vast  material  achieve- 
ment which  comes  to  any  person  upon  visiting  Utah  and 
looking  about  him.  For  the  present  purpose  the  precise 
statistical  facts  are  of  less  consequence  than  the  economic 
principles  which  have  produced  what  everybody  acknowl- 
edges to  be  a  wonderful  result.  These  principles  may  be 
briefly  summarized  as  follows : 

GEl^ERAL  LAND  OWNERSHIP,  LIMITED  TO  THE  AMOUNT 
WHICH  FAMILIES  AND  INDIVIDUALS  COULD  APPLY  TO  A 
USEFUL   PURPOSE. 

SELF-SUFFICIENCY  IN  AGRICULTURE,  AIMING  AT  THE 
COMPLETE  ECONOMIC  INDEPENDENCE  OF  THE  PEOPLE,  IN- 
DIVIDUALLY AND  COLLECTIVELY. 

THE  PUBLIC  OWNERSHIP  OF  PUBLIC  UTILITIES,  SUCH  AS 
WATER  SUPPLY  FOR  IRRIGATION  AND  DOMESTIC  USES. 

THE  CO-OPERATIVE,  OR  ASSOCIATIVE,  OWNERSHIP  AND 
ADMINISTRATION  OF  STORES,  FACTORIES,  AND  BANKS, 
THROUGH  THE  MEDIUM  OF  THE  JOINT-STOCK  COMPANY. 

These  are  the  underlying  principles  of  the  Mormon 
commonwealth.  They  are  vindicated  by  the  successful 
experience  of  the  last  half  century.  Nowhere  else  do  so 
large  a  percentage  of  the  people  own  their  homes  free 
from  incumbrance.     Nowhere  else  has  labor  received  so 

70 


THE    MORMON    COMMONWEALTH 

fair  a  share  of  what  it  has  created.  Nowhere  else  has  the 
common  prosperity  been  reared  upon  firmer  foundations. 
Nowhere  else  are  institutions  more  firmly  buttressed  or 
better  capable  of  resisting  violent  economic  revolutions. 
The  thunder-cloud  which  passed  over  the  land  in  1893, 
leaving  a  path  of  commercial  ruin  from  the  Atlantic  to 
the  Pacific,  was  powerless  to  close  the  door  of  a  single 
Mormon  store,  factory,  or  bank.  Strong  in  prosperity, 
the  co-operative  industrial  and  commercial  system  stood 
immovable  in  the  hour  of  wide-spread  disaster.  The  sol- 
vency of  these  industries  is  scarcely  more  striking  than 
the  solvency  of  the  farmers  from  whom  they  draw  their 
strength.  No  other  Governor,  either  in  the  West  or  in  the 
East,  is  able  to  say  what  the  Honorable  Heber  M.  Wells 
said  in  assuming  the  chief  magistracy  of  the  new  State 
in  January,  1896.  "  We  have  in  Utah,'*  said  the  young 
Governor,  '*19,816  farms,  and  17,684  of  them  are  abso- 
lutely free  of  incumbrance.''  A  higher  percentage  in 
school  attendance  and  a  lower  percentage  of  illiterates 
than  even  in  the  State  of  Massachusetts,  is  another  of 
Utah's  proud  records. 

So  far  we  have  been  dealing  with  facts  that  are  be- 
yond dispute.  No  one  can  deny  that  the  Mormon  indus- 
trial and  commercial  system  is  correctly  described  in  the 
foregoing  pages,  nor  that  that  system  has  made  the  peo- 
ple remarkably  prosperous  in  an  economic  sense.  But 
for  the  purposes  of  this  book  it  is  highly  essential  to 
determine  just  what  weight  should  be  given  to  the  Mor- 
mon experience  as  a  guide  for  future  colonization  effort 
in  the  arid  West,  and  to  what  degree  the  Utah  system 
is  founded  upon  correct  principles  of  industrial  and 
social  economy. 

71 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

The  problem  can  be  summed  up  in  two  questions 
which  have  doubtless  already  occurred  to  the  reader : 
Was  the  Utah  experience  possible  without  Brigham 
Young  ?  Was  Brigham  Young  possible  without  the 
Church  ? 

The  first  of  these  questions  may  be  answered  unhesi- 
tatingly in  the  negative.  Without  a  Brigham  Young 
there  could  have  been  no  such  record  of  achievement  in 
the  deserts  of  Utah.  He  was  the  brains  and  the  soul  of 
the  enterprise.  He  planned  with  extraordinary  sagacity 
and  wrought  with  tremendous  vigor.  Leave  out  that 
brain  and  soul — that  sagacity  and  vigor — and  we  can 
conceive  of  no  emigration  from  Nauvoo  ;  of  no  success-, 
f  nl  march  over  plain  and  mountain  ;  of  no  triumph  over 
the  almost  insuperable  difficulties  which  intervened  be- 
tween the  arrival  of  the  people  in  Salt  Lake  Valley  in 
1847  and  the  firmly  established  community  of  fifty  years 
later.  But  what  of  that  ?  The  concession  of  the  indis- 
pensable fact  of  Brigham  Young  amounts  only  to  the 
concession,  equally  applicable  to  all  human  undertak- 
ings of  magnitude,  that  leadership  is  absolutely  essen- 
tial. 

This  brings  us  to  the  other  and  more  complicated 
question:  Was  Brigham  Young  possible  without  the 
Church?  First  let  us  see  what  manner  of  man  he 
was. 

Born  in  Vermont,  of  good  native  stock,  he  had  the 
characteristics  of  the  place  and  the  race  in  a  pre-eminent 
degree.  He  was  shrewd  and  thrifty,  far-seeing  and  in- 
tensely practical.  He  was  of  coarse  fibre,  deficient  in 
the  finer  feelings,  and  devoid  of  all  imagination  of  the 
poetic  kind.     Of  his  innumerable  sermons  and  speeches 

72 


1 


THE    MORMON    COMMONWEALTH 

nothing  survives  save  an  occasional  homely  maxim,  such 
as,  "  Plough  deep  and  plant  alfalfa."  Like  all  his  sayings 
and  all  his  works,  this  marks  the  mind  and  method  of 
the  materialist  rather  than  of  the  idealist.  Whatever 
else  he  really  thought  of  polygamy,  he  at  least  believed 
it  a  capital  method  of  increasing  the  population  of  a  new 
country,  and  that  happened  to  be  the  particular  work 
upon  which  his  effort  and  ambition  were  engaged. 

A  leader  of  men  ?  Most  eftiphatically,  but  of  the  grim 
and  masterful  sort — a  Cromwell  rather  than  a  Lincoln. 
While  no  orator,  he  had  strong  persuasive  powers.  These 
were  supported  by  splendid  enthusiasm  and  optimism. 
He  could  set  men  at  work  with  the  conviction  in  their 
minds  that  success  was  certain,  failure  impossible. 

This  man  was  successful  in  what  he  undertook  to  do. 
He  did  not  originate  Mormonism.  He  added  nothing 
to  its  creed  or  its  literature,  though  he  added  much  to 
its  power.  But  finding  the  Mormons  a  despised  and 
hunted  people,  he  set  himself  the  task  of  extricating 
them  from  intolerable  surroundings,  of  leading  them  a 
thousand  miles  across  an  almost  unexplored  country, 
and  of  founding,  in  the  midst  of  untried  conditions,  a 
commonwealth  where  they  could  rear  their  homes  and 
temples  and  wax  great  and  strong.  Who  can  doubt  that 
if  he  had  undertaken  to  build  a  transcontinental  rail- 
road, like  Ames  and  Huntington ;  to  found  a  pork-pack- 
ing business,  like  Armour ;  or  to  lead  an  army,  like  Grant, 
he  would  have  commanded  success  ?  He  had  all  the 
elements  of  a  successful  man  in  any  of  the  greater  walks 
of  life  where  pluck  and  brains,  determination  and  vast 
ambition,  are  the  requisite  qualities.  If  he  was  a  relig- 
ious fanatic,  there  never  was  another  of  his  composition. 

73 


THE    CONQUEST    OF   ARID    AMERICA 

Poet  or  orator  he  could  not  have  been ;  seer,  revelator, 
and  ecclesiastic  he  was  not,  save  to  the  superstitious 
vision  of  his  blind  followers  ;  but  great,  resourceful,  and 
of  commanding  personality  he  was — a  captain  of  industry, 
an  organizer  of  prosperity;  and  the  Utah  of  to-day  is 
his  undeniable  claim  to  fame  and  his  imperishable  monu- 
ment. 

So  much  for  the  man.  What  of  the  Church  ?  It  was 
unquestionably  the  instrument  used  in  the  settlement 
of  Utah.  It  is  being  used  to-day  as  an  instrument  in 
settling  portions  of  Canada,  Mexico,  and  other  localities. 
Regarded  simply  as  a  Church,  it  is  successful  numerically 
and  financially.  It  is  one  of  the  few  creeds  where  secu- 
lar and  religious  affairs  are  brought  into  the  closest  as- 
sociation, and,  for  this  reason,  it  is  generally  believed 
that  church  solidarity  is  the  true  explanation  of  the 
economic  prosperity  of  the  Mormons.  This  conclusion 
rests  upon  the  theory  that  the  Church  sustains  the  in- 
dustrial system.  The  writer  emphatically  dissents  from 
this  notion,  and  confidently  asserts  that  precisely  the  re- 
verse is  the  truth — ^that  the  industrial  system  sustains 
the  Church. 

The  principles  upon  which  the  Mormon  industrial  and 
social  structure  was  reared  have  been  carefully  presented 
in  this  chapter.  These  principles  have  worked  success- 
fully for  fifty  years.  To  determine  the  part  which  they 
had  in  the  actual  result,  let  us  ask  ourselves  this  ques- 
tion :  Suppose  the  plans  initiated  by  Brigham  Young  had 
failed  to  give  his  followers  the  security  of  a  home  and 
the  certainty  of  a  living ;  that  their  co-operative  industry 
had  produced  losses  rather  than  profits ;  that  their  vil- 
lage system  had  brought   social  discontent  instead  of 

74 


THE    MORMON    COMMONWEALTH 

satisfaction — what  then  ?  Is  it  conceivable  that  religious 
fanaticism  could  have  held  them  together  and  lent  such 
an  impulse  to  their  growth  that  to-day,  over  a  quarter 
of  a  century  after  the  death  of  Brigham  Young,  they 
should  be  growing  faster  than  ever  before,  maintaining 
more  missionaries  and  building  more  colonies  in  various 
parts  of  the  world  ?  Surely  economic  fallacy  never  pro- 
duced such  striking  results  as  these  in  any  other  instance 
known  to  history. 

It  would  perhaps  be  a  tenable  position  to  say  that  in 
Utah  a  sound  economic  system,  working  in  conjunction 
with  religious  enthusiasm,  produced  the  result  now 
known  of  all  men  ;  but  that  would  be  very  nearly  equiva- 
lent to  saying  that  the  only  way  to  solve  the  problem  of 
reclamation  and  settlement  in  the  arid  regions  is  to  turn 
the  task  over  to  the  Mormon  Church  and  to  advise  all 
who  crave  homes  to'  join  that  organization.  The  writer 
believes  that  the  attraction  of  Mormonism  has  consisted 
mostly  in  what  it  offered  to  the  home-seeker,  and  that 
the  secret  of  its  cohesion  is  the  prosperity  that  has  re- 
sulted from  its  industrial  system  rather  than  the  occult 
power  of  its  creed. 

Polygamy  has  so  stirred  the  Christian  world  that  no 
man  may  speak  in  praise  of  any  of  the  Mormon  institu- 
tions except  at  the  risk  of  being  misunderstood,  or  pos- 
sibly regarded  as  an  apologist  for  what  the  nation  has 
condemned  as  a  crime  against  womanhood.  On  the 
other  hand,  no  candid  mind  can  study  the  problem  which 
confronts  the  American  people — the  problem  of  opening 
the  door  to  the  masses  of  our  citizenship  upon  the  un- 
used natural  resources  of  the  nation — without  realizing 
that  Brigham  Young  and  the  State  he  founded  furnish 

75 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID   AMERICA 

stronger  and  clearer  light  for  the  future  of  domestic 
colonization  than  any  other  experience  that  can  possibly 
be  discovered.  It  is  in  the  earnest  conviction  that  it  is 
a  high  public  service  to  show  the  virtues  of  the  Mormon 
industrial  system  that  this  chapter  is  written. 


CHAPTER  n 
THE  GBEBLEY   COLONY  OP  COLORADO 

The  Greeley  Colony  of  Colorado  sprang  belated  from 
the  seed  of  Fourierism  sown  broadcast  in  the  forties. 
In  all  our  social  history  there  is  no  more  interesting  page 
than  that  which  records  the  rise,  progress,  and  tem- 
porary defeat  of  the  doctrine  of  association.  Fraught 
with  the  noblest  aspirations,  and  welcomed  and  cham- 
pioned by  the  most  brilliant  minds,  it  disappointed,  in 
actual  practice,  the  High  hopes  of  its  friends.  Fran9oi8 
Marie  Charles  Fourier  devoted  his  life  to  elaborating  his 
scheme  of  Socialism,  and  died  a  few  years  before  the 
seed  of  his  thought  was  wafted  across  the  Atlantic  to 
take  sudden  root  in  our  soil. 

The  American  impulse  of  Fourierism  arose  from  the 
miseries  of  the  hard  winter  of  1838.  The  doctrine  had 
been  imported  by  Albert  Brisbane,  a  young  gentleman  of 
wealth  and  leisure  who  had  studied  the  works  of  the 
French  philosopher  in  Paris  and  returned  to  this  country 
warm  with  these  new  hopes  for  humanity.  Availing 
himself  of  the  opportunity  offered  by  the  universal  dis- 
content, he  plunged  boldly  into  the  agitation  and  at- 
tracted a  remarkable  degree  of  attention.  Horace 
Greeley,  then  in  the  morning  of  his  fame,  espoused  the 
new  cause,  at   first  cautiously,  then  with  characteristic 

77 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

energy  and  daring.  The  period  of  agitation  covered  the 
years  between  1840  and  1847.  The  men  of  thought  soon 
won  the  confidence  of  the  men  of  action,  and  a  large 
number  of  associations  for  the  purpose  of  bringing 
Fourierism  to  the  practical  test  were  formed  in  various 
States.  In  May,  1843,  Mr.  Greeley  wrote  in  the  Tribune: 
*'  The  doctrine  of  association  is  spreading  throughout 
the  country  with  a  rapidity  which  we  did  not  anticipate, 
and  of  which  we  had  but  little  hope.  We  receive  papers 
from  nearly  all  parts  of  the  northern  and  western  States, 
and  some  from  the  South,  containing  articles  upon  as- 
sociation, in  which  general  views  and  outlines  of  the 
system  are  given.  Efforts  are  making  in  various  parts 
of  this  State,  in  Vermont,  in  Pennsylvania,  Indiana,  and 
Illinois,  to  establish  associations,  which  will  probably  be 
successful  in  the  course  of  the  present  year.'' 

There  was  not  much  difficulty  in  obtaining  recruits  for 
these  undertakings,  and  the  experiment  was  entered 
upon  with  great  enthusiasm.  With  a  single  exception, 
it  ended  in  failure.  The  most  famous  of  these  colonies 
was  Brook  Farm,  at  West  Roxbury,  nine  miles  from 
Boston.  Rev.  George  Ripley  was  the  head  of  the  enter- 
prise. With  him  were  associated,  either  as  actual  col- 
onists or  active  sympathizers  and  supporters,  Nathaniel 
Hawthorne,  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  Henry  D.  Thoreau, 
James  Freeman  Clarke,  William  Ellery  Channing,  Bron- 
son  Alcott,  George  Bancroft,  Charles  A.  Dana,  Margaret 
Fuller,  and  many  others  whose  names  rank  high  in  the 
annals  of  American  literature.  Never  before,  and  never 
afterwards,  was  such  a  galaxy  of  brains  assembled  in  a 
single  colony.  Most  of  them  were  then  in  young  man- 
hood, with  their  fame  all  before  them.     But  the  historian 

78 


THE  GREELEY  COLONY  OF  COLORADO 

of  the  enterprise  sadly  relates  that,  at  the  end  of  their 
first  year  they  found  they  had  a  surplus  of  philosophers 
and  a  dearth  of  men  who  could  hoe  potatoes.  And  New 
England  has  been  smiling  about  Brook  Farm  ever  since. 
The  end  of  Fourierism  in  the  United  States  was  the  joint 
debate  between  Horace  Greeley  and  Henry  J.  Raymond 
in  their  respective  newspapers,  the  Tribune  and  the 
Courier,  of  New  York. 

In  the  minds  of  the  devoted  constituency  of  the  New 
York  Tribune,  the  idea  of  colony-planting  as  a  means  of 
improving  the  lot  of  average  humanity  had  taken  deep 
root,  so  that  twenty-five  years  after  Fourier's  dream  had 
ceased  to  flourish  as  a  social  experiment,  a  colony  repre- 
senting its  hopes,  if  not  its  methods,  could  gain  supporters. 

The  new  venture  was  initiated  by  Nathan  Cook  Meeker, 
who  had  succeeded  Solon  Robinson  as  agricultural  editor 
of  the  New  York  Tribune  at  the  close  of  the  war.  In 
1844  Mr.  Meeker  had  been  an  active  participant  in  the 
Trumbull  Phalanx  at  Warron,  Ohio.  This  had  expired 
of  ague,  poverty,  and  dissension,  after  a  fitful  career  of 
about  three  years.  "  If  the  place  had  been  healthy," 
Mr.  Meeker  said  afterwards,  "  we  should  have  held  out 
longer,  and  the  idle  and  improvident  would  have  got 
more  out  of  the  industrious  and  patient ;  but  I  have  no 
reason  to  suppose  that  we  should  not  have  finally  ex- 
ploded, either  in  some  fight,  or  at  least  in  disgust. '' 
From  this  experience  he  emerged  disappointed  and  des- 
titute, but  with  valuable  lessons  for  the  future  and  un- 
shaken faith  in  the  utility  of  colonization  effort.  The 
knowledge  thus  dearly  bought  he  was  destined  to  apply, 
many  years  later,  in  a  useful  career  as  one  of  the  found- 
ers of  a  State. 

9» 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

In  the  fall  of  1869  Mr.  Meeker  had  returned  from  a 
trip  to  the  Far  West,  the  object  of  which  was  to  describe 
the  Mormon  industrial  system  in  a  series  of  letters  to  the 
Tribune.  Encountering  a  snow  blockade  at  Cheyenne, 
which  compelled  him  to  postpone  his  visit  to  Utah,  he 
had  gone  to  Colorado  instead.  It  was  at  the  time  when 
the  Kansas  Pacific  Railroad  was  pushing  across  the  plains 
to  the  budding  village  of  Denver,  transforming  the  wag- 
on-trail into  a  highway  of  civilization.  Everywhere  Mr. 
Meeker  beheld  the  dawn  of  a  new  industrial  life  in  the 
midst  of  a  wilderness.  He  was  charmed  with  the  climate 
and  scenery,  and  impressed  with  the  material  wealth  of 
the  country's  undeveloped  resources.  The  old  enthusi- 
asm for  colony-making  filled  his  imagination.  "Wearied 
with  a  life  struggle  to  remodel  old  social  structures,  he 
longed  to  avail  himself  of  this  opportunity  to  build  on 
new  foundations. 

These  hopes  he  communicated  to  his  friend,  John  Rus- 
sell Young,  who  agreed  to  bring  the  matter  to  the  atten- 
tion of  Horace  Q-reeley.  This  he  did  at  a  dinner  held  at 
Delmonico's  in  December,  1869.  Mr.  Greeley  was  in- 
stantly interested,  and  beckoned  Mr.  Meeker  to  join  him 
at  the  table.  '^  I  understand  you  have  a  notion  to  start 
a  colony  to  go  to  Colorado,"  said  the  editor.  *'  Well," 
he  continued,  *'I  wish  you  would  take  hold  of  it,  for  I 
think  it  will  be  a  great  success,  and  if  I  could,  I  would 
go  myself."  Thus  assured  of  powerful  backing,  Mr. 
Meeker  at  once  proceeded  to  form  his  plans. 

The  prospectus  of  the  new  colony  was  drawn  up  by 
Mr.  Meeker,  but  carefully  weighed  and  revised  by  Mr. 
Greeley.  A  quarter  of  a  century  had  elapsed  since  these 
men  had  been  engaged — the  one  as  active  participant, 

80 


THE  GREELEY  COLONY  OF  COLORADO 

the  other  as  the  most  conspicuous  American  champion — 
in  the  Fourier  scheme  of  association.  It  is  interesting  to 
observe  just  how  much  of  the  old  plan  survived  in  the 
new  colony  prospectus,  when  the  thought  of  these  leaders 
had  been  mellowed  and  broadened  by  many  more  years  of 
life  and  experience. 

In  the  Fourier  communities  the  people  had  lived  to- 
gether under  one  roof,  in  the  hope  of  effecting  large 
household  economies.  There  had  been  common  owner- 
ship of  land,  and  an  attempt  at  equal  division  of  labor. 
The  unit  of  the  community  was  the  whole ;  the  only  in- 
dividual, the  public. 

In  forming  the  plan  of  the  new  colony  the  lessons  of 
experience  were  not  forgotten.  There  was  but  a  single 
suggestion  of  the  "  phalanstery,"  or  common  household 
of  Fourier  days,  and  that  was  advanced  in  timid  terms. 
*'It  seems  to  me,"  Mr.  Meeker  wrote,  "that  a  laundry 
and  bakery  might  be  established,  and  the  washing  and 
baking  done  for  all  the  community ;  but  other  household 
work  should  be  done  by  the  families."  It  was  provided 
that  the  unit  of  society  should  be  the  family,  living  under 
its  own  roof;  that  farms  and  homes  should  be  owned 
independently ;  that  individuals  should  plan  their  own 
labor,  and  rise  or  fall  by  their  industry  and  thrift,  or  lack 
of  them.  The  new  ideal  was  that  of  an  organized  com- 
munity which  should  give  the  people  the  benefit  of  as- 
sociation without  hampering  individual  enterprise  and 
ability.  It  furnished  a  means  of  settlement  essentially 
different  from  that  under  which  the  Middle  West  had 
been  developed. 

Land  was  to  be  purchased  on  a  large  scale  with  a  com- 
mon fund.  This  cheapened  its  cost,  and  gave  the  col- 
F  81 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

onists  an  important  measure  of  control  in  its  sub -di- 
vision and  development.  The  settlement  was  to  be  made 
almost  wholly  in  a  village,  the  land  being  divided  into 
blocks  of  ten  acres,  and  the  blocks  into  eight  lots  for 
building  purposes.  It  was  proposed  to  apportion  each 
family  '*  from  forty  to  eighty,  even  one  hundred  and  six- 
ty acres,"  adjoining  the  village.  Northampton,  in  Mass- 
achusetts, and  several  other  New  England  towns  and  vil- 
lages, had  been  settled  in  this  manner.  A  feature  of 
much  interest  was  the  proposal  to  have  the  residence  and 
business  lots  sold  for  the  benefit  of  the  colony's  treasury, 
the  capital  so  obtained  to  be  appropriated  for  public  im- 
provements, such  as  building  a  church,  a  town-hall,  and 
a  school -house,  and  establishing  a  public  library.  This 
plan  marked  an  important  departure  in  town-making. 
Town  sites,  as  a  rule,  especially  where  the  community 
promises  a  rapid  growth,  are  treated  as  opportunities  for 
private  speculation.  The  boom  comes,  and  everybody 
prospers  ;  the  boom  goes,  and  a  few  schemers  have  man- 
aged to  acquire  nearly  all  the  cash  capital.  Under  the 
new  plan,  as  the  prospectus  pointed  out,  *'  the  increased 
value  of  real  estate  will  be  for  the  benefit  of  all  the  peo- 
ple." They  would  receive  these  benefits,  too,  in  the  best 
form,  as  in  the  shape  of  permanent  improvements  essen- 
tial to  their  social  and  intellectual  well-being,  and  of 
capital  available  for  industrial  purposes. 

Other  advantages  of  settling  in  a  village  were  pre- 
sented as  follows  :  ''  Easy  access  to  schools  and  public 
places,  meetings,  lectures,  and  the  like.  In  planting,  in 
fruit-growing,  and  improving  homes  generally,  the  skill 
and  experience  of  a  few  will  be  common  to  all,  and 
much  greater  progress  can  be  made  than  where  each  lives 


THE  GREELEY  COLONY  OF  COLORADO 

isolated.  Refined  society  and  all  the  advantages  of  an 
old  country  will  be  secured  in  a  few  years ;  while,  on  the 
contrary,  where  settlements  are  made  by  old  methods 
people  are  obliged  to  wait  twenty,  forty,  or  more  years.'* 

This  prospectus  was  published  in  the  New  York  Trib- 
une of  December  14, 1869..  with  a  hearty  editorial  indorse- 
ment. Spite  of  radical  departures  in  the  matter  of 
private  landholding  and  individual  industry,  the  vital 
spirit  of  Fourierism  lived  and  breathed  through  the  cau- 
tious lines  of  the  announcement.  There  was  still  the 
high  ideal  of  social  and  civic  life,  of  industrial  indepen- 
dence, of  a  scheme  of  labor  which  should  give  to  the  la- 
borer an  equitable  share  of  what  he  produced.  There 
was  still  the  plan  of  co-operation  in  achieving  things  for 
the  common  benefit.  There  was  still  the  craving  for  a 
society  composed  of  sober,  temperate,  industrious  people. 
The  common  household  had  been  discarded  for  the  family 
home  and  hearth-stone,  but  for  the  barbarism  and  isola- 
tion of  life  on  great  farms  there  had  been  substituted  the 
association  of  homes  in  the  village  centre,  with  the  best 
social  and  intellectual  opportunities.  Behind  the  new 
plan,  as  behind  the  old,  stood  the  patient  energy  and  faith 
of  Meeker  and  the  glorious  optimism  of  Greeley. 

The  announcement  had  met  with  a  prompt  and  en- 
thusiastic response  at  the  hands  of  several  hundred  peo- 
ple, who  had  organized  the  Union  Colony  of  Colorado  at 
a  meeting  held  at  the  Cooper  Institute  in  New  York, 
where  Horace  Greeley  had  presided.  A  committee  had 
selected  twelve  thousand  acres  of  railroad  and  govern- 
ment land  in  the  valley  of  the  Cache  la  Poudre,  twenty 
miles  northwest  of  Denver,  on  the  line  of  railway  then 
building  to  Cheyenne.     The  pioneers  of  the  colony  were 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

thus  able  to  begin  settlement  in  the  spring  of  1870,  and 
to  bring  to  the  test  of  actual  experience  the  social  and 
industrial  plans  set  forth  in  the  prospectus.  A  party  of 
eastern  people,  most  of  whom  came  from  cities,  they  en- 
tered cheerfully  upon  the  task  of  adjusting  a  high  ideal 
to  the  untried  conditions  of  a  country  which  had  previ- 
ously known  only  the  Indian,  the  hunter,  and  the  cow- 
boy. Their  experience  for  the  next  twenty  years  has  a 
larger  significance  than  merely  local  history,  since  the 
community  is  one  of  the  landmarks  in  western  life. 

Mr.  Meeker  having  refused  the  use  of  his  own  name, 
the  new  town  was  christened  "  Greeley,"  and  this  name 
was  popularly  applied  to  the  colony  also,  in  spite  of  its 
incorporated  title.  The  first  severe  test  of  the  co- 
operative principle,  which  had  been  relied  upon  for  the 
larger  enterprises,  arose  in  connection  with  the  building 
of  canals.  There  had  been  no  misconception  as  to  the 
need  of  irrigation,  but  it  was  supposed  that  the  works 
could  be  quickly  constructed  and  the  new  methods  of 
agriculture  readily  learned.  The  original  estimate  of 
cost  was  twenty  thousand  dollars.  The  actual  outlay  be- 
fore the  works  were  completed  reached  four  hundred 
and  twelve  thousand,  or  more  than  twenty  times  the  es- 
timate. For  resources  to  meet  this  unexpected  demand, 
the  colony  had  only  receipts  from  the  sales  of  property 
and  the  subscriptions  and  labor  of  its  members.  The  re- 
sult was  not  reached  without  serious  dissensions  and 
some  desertions,  but  the  works  were  built,  and  the  commu- 
nity survived  with  its  co-operative  principle  intact.  It  is 
not  to  be  believed  that  a  private  enterprise  could  have  lived 
through  a  similar  experience  with  the  same  slender  finan- 
cial resources,  for  it  was  the  public  spirit  and  pride  which 

84 


THE  GREELEY  COLONY  OF  COLORADO 

saved  the  day  at  this  critical  juncture.  These  increased 
as  difficulties  multiplied,  and  rose  with  the  tide  of  out- 
side criticism  and  abuse.  The  process  welded  the  people 
together,  and  made  them  strong  enough  to  meet  success- 
fully the  obstacles  which  yet  remained. 

Having  provided  water  for  their  lands,  the  settlers  pro- 
ceeded to  create  the  irrigation  industry  of  Colorado  ;  for 
nothing  worthy  of  the  name  existed  on  the  scattered 
ranches  of  the  sparsely  settled  Territory.  The  new- 
comers brought  their  intelligence  to  bear  upon  the  prob- 
lem of  perfecting  skilful  methods  of  irrigation  and  culti- 
vation, and  of  discovering  the  classes  of  crops  best 
adapted  to  the  soil  and  climate.  This  work  quickly  led 
them  to  realize  another  disappointment  of  serious  import. 
They  had  dreamed  of  orchards  and  vineyards,  and  of 
homes  set  in  the  midst  of  beautiful  flowers  and  delicate 
shrubbery.  Experiment  soon  taught  them  that  they  had 
been  deceived  about  the  character  of  the  country.  The 
hopes  which  had  been  built  upon  the  fruit  industry  failed 
utterly,  and  the  colonists  were  compelled  to  fall  back 
upon  general  farming.  This  involved  somewhat  larger 
farms,  and  rendered  more  difficult  the  realization  of  their 
social  plans.  Very  likely  it  saved  them  from  the  evils 
of  the  single  crop  which  has  marred  the  prosperity  of 
many  agricultural  districts.  The  diversified  products  of 
the  soil  yielded  them  a  comfortable  living.  Since  there 
was  no  hope  of  obtaining  cash  income  from  fruit,  they 
sought  another  surplus  crop,  and  found  it  in  the  potato, 
to  which  their  soil  proved  to  be  peculiarly  adapted.  They 
made  an  exhaustive  study  of  this  culture,  and  at  last  pro- 
duced in  the  "  Greeley  potato"  one  of  the  famous  crops  of 
the  West.    Its  superiority  readily  commands  the  best  place 

85 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

in  the  market,  and  there  have  been  years  when  the  crop 
has  returned  a  million  dollars  to  the  potato  districts  of 
which  the  colony  is  the  centre.  The  farmers  invented  a 
pool  system  which  frequently  enabled  them  to  control 
the  output,  and  so  influence  prices  in  their  favor. 

Events  proved  that  the  colonists  were  gainers  by  reason 
of  the  trials  and  disappointments  which  attended  the 
establishment  of  their  industrial  life.  Though  the  cost 
of  their  canals  had  so  far  outrun  their  expectations,  they 
obtained  their  water  supply  much  cheaper  than  did  sub- 
sequent communities  who  patronized  private  companies. 
At  Greeley  the  cost  of  a  water-right  for  eighty  acres  was 
three  hundred  and  fifty  dollars.  This  made  the  user  a 
proportionate  owner  of  the  works.  Where  canals  were 
private,  settlers  paid  twelve  hundred  dollars  for  precisely 
the  same  amount  of  water,  while  the  works  remained  the 
property  of  a  foreign  corporation.  The  difference  in  the 
price  of  water  under  the  two  systems  represented  a  very 
handsome  dividend  for  those  who  had  persisted  in  their 
allegiance  to  the  co-operative  principle.  In  the  same 
way,  the  colonists  profited  from  their  struggle  to  realize 
the  best  agricultural  methods.  They  won  a  reputation 
for  their  products  which  possessed  abtual  commercial 
value,  and  they  became  the  teachers  of  irrigation,  furnish- 
ing practical  examples  to  students  of  the  subject  and 
contributing  largely  to  its  literature.  These  results  must 
be  credited  to  the  fact  that  the  community  was  organized, 
and  that  the  people  acted  with  a  common  impulse. 

Passing  now  from  the  industrial  to  the  civic  side  of  the 
colony  life,  we  find  that  the  high  public  spirit  in  which 
the  community  was  conceived  left  its  marks  not  less  in- 
delibly.    In  the  original  prospectus  Mr.  Meeker  had 


THE    GREELEY    COLONY    OF    COLORADO 

plainly  stated,  "  The  persons  with  whom  I  would  be  will- 
ing to  associate  must  be  temperance  men  and  ambitious 
to  establish  good  society."  This  was  no  sounding  phrase, 
for  the  founder  and  his  fellow-colonists  wrote  their  prin- 
ciples into  the  title  deeds  which  transferred  farm  and 
village  property  from  the  company  to  individuals.  These 
provided  that  if  intoxicating  liquor  were  ever  manufact- 
ured or  sold  on  the  land,  title  should  immediately  revert 
to  the  colony.  The  provision  was  enforced  with  splendid 
intolerance.  Those  who  were  not  in  accord  with  its  spirit 
had  not  been  invited  to  come,  nor  were  they  made  com- 
fortable while  they  stayed.  Their  unbending  attitude  on 
this  subject  gave  the  men  of  Greeley  the  title  of  "  Puri- 
tans/' which  was  a  unique  distinction  in  the  Far  West, 
in  that  day  of  cowboys  and  border  ruffians.  The  prohi- 
bition clause  in  the  deeds  was  stoutly  resisted  by  a  small 
minority,  and  went  from  court  to  court,  until  it  was 
finally  vindicated  by  the  supreme  tribunal  at  Washington. 
The  Greeley  local  sentiment  has  always  upheld  the  princi- 
ple, and  insisted  that  it  was  responsible  for  the  admitted- 
ly high  character  of  the  community.  Like  several  of  the 
colony's  plans,  it  has  been  extensively  imitated. 

The  government  of  the  community  was  vested  in  exe- 
cutive officers,  but  was  actually  ruled  by  public  opinion. 
This  found  expression  in  numerous  town  meetings  held 
in  Colony  Hall,  which  was  one  of  the  earliest  buildings 
erected.  Here  all  the  public  affairs  were  discussed  with 
perfect  frankness  to  the  last  detail,  and  no  public  officer 
ventured  to  stray  far  from  the  conclusions  there  pro- 
nounced. 

Not  even  the  early  hardships  and  disappointments 
were  permitted  to  mar  the  social  life  of  the  colony.   The 

87 


THE    CONQUEST   OF    ARID    AMERICA 

people  made  the  most  of  the  opportunities  offered  by  the 
association  of  homes  in  the  village,  and  organized  a 
variety  of  social  and  intellectual  diversions.  At  an  early 
period  an  irreverent  newspaper  writer  remarked :  "  The 
town  of  Greeley  is  a  delectable  arena,  for  of  the  entire 
population  three-fourths  are  members  of  clubs  that  are 
eternally  in  session.  Day  may  sink  into  night,  flowers 
may  bloom  and  fade,  and  the  seasons  roll  round  with  the 
year,  but  Greeley  clubs  are  unchangeable. ''  In  one  of 
the  letters  by  which  Mr.  Meeker  kept  the  readers  of  the 
New  York  Tribune  informed  of  the  progress  of  the  com- 
munity, he  spoke  of  these  '^  overflowing  meetings,^'  and 
said :  "In  all  our  experience  we  have  never  seen  such  in- 
stitutions so  well  sustained  ;  and  if  we  wanted  to  show 
strangers  the  best  that  is  to  be  seen  of  Greeley  we  would 
have  them  visit  the  Lyceum."  ^ 

David  Boyd,  who  was  both  a  prominent  actor  in  these 
scenes  and  the  historian  of  the  colony,  writes  of  the  same 
subject,  and  throws  a  suggestive  side-light  on  a  notable 
trait  of  western  life  when  he  says:  ''In  coming  to  a 
country  which  offered  so  many  new  questions  for  solution 
and  presented  so  many  new  aspects  of  life,  the  minds  even  of 
those  past  their  prime  experienced  a  sort  of  rejuvenation. 
Being  nearly  all  strangers  to  one  another,  each  was  ambi- 
tious to  begin  his  new  record  as  well  as  possible,  and  so 
put  the  best  foot  foremost."  Here  is  the  explanation  of 
much  of  the  superior  energy  which  marks  the  life  of  new 
communities,  and  here  lies  the  hope  of  social  progress 
through  colonization.  The  individuality  all  but  obliter- 
ated in  the  great  city  springs  anew  and  develops  into 
blossom  and  fruitage  in  the  fresh  soil  of  colonial  life.  In- 
stitutions which  would  be  quite  impracticable  in  old  and 


THE  GREELEY  COLONY  OF  COLORADO 

crowded  centres  get  a  footing  in  new  countries,  where 
men  may  exert  untrammeled  energies,  and  move  freely 
in  that  atmosphere  of  social  equality  which  is  certain  to 
characterize  new  communities  and  likely  to  endure  while 
they  continue  small. 

In  considering  the  net  results  of  Greeley  Colony,  it  is 
important  to  note  first  that  it  has  been  thoroughly  suc- 
cessful. In  this  respect  it  presents  a  striking  contrast  to 
the  Fourier  experiment,  from  which  it  may  be  said  to 
have  descended.  Each  man  prospered  according  to  his 
merit,  and  what  the  community  undertook  to  do  by 
means  of  co-operation  it  accomplished.  It  cannot  be  said 
that  the  latter  principle  was  applied  extensively.  The 
capital  realized  from  the  sale  of  property  was  so  largely 
absorbed  in  the  construction  of  canals  as  to  leave  little 
surplus  for  other  industrial  and  commercial  enterprises. 
If  one-half  of  this  capital  had  been  available  for  stores, 
banks,  and  small  industries,  it  is  likely  that  much  which 
was  necessarily  left  to  private  initiative  would  have  been 
undertaken  by  the  colony.  In  that  case  we  should  find 
broader  lessons  in  co-operative  effort  than  we  do  now.  It 
it  is  also  important  to  note  that  the  community  owed  its 
prosperity  to  its  high  ideal  and  uncompromising  public 
spirit.  There  was  here  no  common  religious  tie  as  in  the 
early  New  England  colonies  ;  no  shadow  of  persecution 
such  as  that  which  bound  the  Mormon  pioneers  together 
in  an  indissoluble  brotherhood.  The  nearest  approach 
to  this  influence  was  the  prohibition  sentiment,  and  this 
formed  but  a  small  part  of  the  original  plan.  These  colo- 
nists were  earnest  men  and  women  who  had  gone  forth 
to  make  homes  where  they  could  combine  industrial  in- 
dependence with  social  equality  and  intellectual  oppor- 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

tnnity.  They  were  grimly  determined  to  accomplish 
what  they  had  nndertaken.  This  spirit,  and  this  alone, 
kept  them  from  going  to  pieces  during  the  first  five  years, 
and  laid  the  foundation  for  their  permanent  prosperity. 

Both  Colorado  and  the  arid  West  owe  much  to  the  ex- 
ample of  Grreeley.  It  lent  an  impulse  to  the  develop- 
ment of  their  civic  character,  and  made  a  deep  and  last- 
ing impression  upon  their  agricultural  industry.  The 
influence  of  the  community  on  its  immediate  surround- 
ings is  yet  more  plainly  visible.  Its  success  resulted  in 
large  irrigation  developments  and  numerous  settlements 
in  Colorado,  Wyoming,  and  western  Nebraska.  A  com- 
munity without  a  pauper  or  a  millionaire,  Greeley  has 
yet  had  a  surplus  both  of  men  and  of  capital  to  con- 
tribute to  the  making  of  new  districts.  The  colony  of 
to-day  is  a  well-built  town  of  comfortable  homes  and 
substantial  business  blocks,  surrounded  by  well -culti- 
vated farms  connected  by  a  comprehensive  canal  system, 
which  is  the  property  of  the  land-owners.  Although  in 
periods  of  general  business  depression  it  has  felt  the 
heavy  hand  of  hard  times,  few  communities  in  the  world 
possess  a  better  assurance  of  a  comfortable  living  in  the 
future,  while  none  has  better  educational  and  social  ad- 
vantages. 

Horace  Greeley  followed  the  colony's  development 
with  the  closest  interest,  writing  frequent  letters  of  ad- 
vice, and  even  finding  time  to  pay  a  hurried  visit.  His 
last  letter  to  Mr.  Meeker,  written  six  days  before  his 
death,  was  as  follows : 

"  Friend  Meeker, — I  presume  you  have  already  drawn  on  me 
for  the  one  thousand  dollars  to  buy  land.  If  you  have  not,  please 
do  so  at  once.     I  have  not  much  money,  and  probably  never  shall 

90 


THE  GREELEY  COLONY  OF  COLORADO 

have,  but  I  believe  in  Union  Colony  and  you,  and  consider  this  a 
good  investment  for  my  children," 

To  N.  C.  Meeker  Mr.  Greeley's  death  was,  indeed,  ca- 
lamitous. Depriving  him  of  necessary  income  from  news- 
paper sources,  as  well  as  of  financial  backing  in  the  col- 
ony operations,  it  made  it  necessary  for  him  to  seek 
employment  in  the  public  service,  and  this  was  directly 
responsible  for  his  death.  He  was  massacred  by  the 
Indians  while  serving  as  agent  on  the  White  River 
reservation.  His  work  for  the  colony  had  been*  entirely 
unselfish,  and  his  name  deserves  high  rank  among  the 
founders  of  western  civilization. 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  EVOLUTION   OF  SOUTHERlSr  CALIFORNIA 

The  most  valuable  lessons  in  all  the  romantic  history 
of  California  may  be  found  in  a  trivial  corner  of  the 
great  commonwealth.  Upon  a  clear  day  the  eye  may 
readily  scan  its  entire  length  from  the  San  Timoteo 
hills  to  the  shining  sea.  Between  its  parallel  mountain 
ranges  the  width  of  the  district  seems  but  two  or  three 
miles,  though  in  reality  it  is  from  ten  to  twenty  miles. 
Ignoring  the  nomenclature  of  local  districts,  this  is  the 
San  Bernardino  Valley.  It  is  upon  this  narrow  terri- 
tory that  to  a  great  degree  the  fame  of  California  climate 
and  productions  rests.  Here  institutions  have  been 
created  in  the  last  thirty  years  which  are  destined  to  ex- 
ert a  powerful  influence  upon  the  future  of  the  West. 

What  Holland  was  to  the  life  of  Europe  in  the  four- 
teenth, fifteenth,  and  sixteenth  centuries,  southern  Cal- 
ifornia is  to  the  life  of  the  Pacific  coast  at  the  end  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  The  industrial  impulse  which  the 
men  of  the  Netherlands  caught  from  their  conquest  of  the 
sea,  the  men  of  the  southern  valleys  caught  from  their  con- 
quest of  the  desert.  "  Curbing  the  ocean  and  overflowing 
rivers  with  their  dikes,"  says  one  of  the  closest  students  of 
Dutch  history,  "  they  came  to  love  the  soil,  their  own  cre- 
ation, and  to  till  it  with  patient,  almost  tender  care."  So 

92 


EVOLUTION  OF  SOUTHERN  CALIFORNIA 

they  became  the  fathers  of  scientific  farming  in  Europe. 
They  wrought  a  marvellous  revolution  in  the  methods 
of  cultivating  the  soil.  "  When  Catherine  of  Aragon 
wished  for  a  salad  she  was  compelled  to  send  for  it 
across  the  Channel  by  a  special  messenger."  The  civ- 
ilization founded  upon  this  wonderful  agriculture  main- 
tained its  high  character  through  the  whole  range  of 
their  economic  life.  The  habits  of  skilful  industry 
which  grew  from  the  intensely  cultivated  soil  conferred 
the  same  prosperity  when  adapted  to  the  workshop  and 
the  store.  The  thread  of  co-operation  spun  from  their 
common  labor  on  the  dikes  ran  through  the  entire  in- 
dustrial fabric  of  the  crowded  little  nation.  The  influ- 
ence of  neighborly  association  involved  in  the  conditions 
of  existence  on  farms  of  petty  size  colored  and  shaped 
their  social  life.  As  it  was  in  Holland,  so  it  is  in  south- 
ern California. 

The  men  of  the  southern  valleys  made  the  small-farm 
unit  supreme.  With  marvellous  patience  and  intelli- 
gence they  worked  out  the  highest  methods  of  watering 
and  tilling  the  soil  known  to  the  world.  Tempering 
their  speculative  instincts  with  love  of  home,  they  de- 
veloped towns  and  surroundings  of  rare  beauty  and  com- 
fort, and  made  them  centres  of  high  social  and  intellect- 
ual life.  To  compare  these  conditions  with  those  which 
prevail  in  the  great  wheat-  and  cattle-ranches  of  the 
North,  where  labor  is  mostly  servile,  and  where  beauty 
has  never  laid  its  hand  upon  the  home  or  dooryard,  is 
like  comparing  Holland  to  Paraguay.  Although  the 
South  has  by  no  means  escaped  the  evils  of  the  single 
crop,  it  has  vindicated  irrigation  and  the  small  farm,  and 
the  extraordinary  social  possibilities  inherent  in  both. 

93 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

These  are  the  valuable  lessons  which  may  be  set  against 
the  failures  and  disappointments  of  the  last  two  dec- 


In  the  stormy  and  heroic  days  of  the  gold  epoch,  of  the 
Bear  Flag,  of  the  American  conquest,  and  of  the  vigi- 
lance committees,  southern  California  played  a  small 
part.  Its  past  is  the  dreamy  memory  of  old  mission 
days,  of  peaceful  shepherds,  of  great  haciendas,  of  a  land 
dominated  by  Spanish  folk  and  speech.  The  land  was  a 
desert  of  sage-brush  and  cactus,  in  which  a  few  scattered 
mission  gardens  made  charming  oases.  Along  moist 
river-bottoms  there  were  sometimes  fields  and  gardens, 
though  not  of  the  highest  type.  On  the  uplands  light 
crops  of  wheat  and  barley  were  occasionally  harvested,  if 
spring  rains  happened  to  be  fairly  generous.  But  it  was, 
apparently,  a  country  which  offered  nothing  to  the 
stranger  save  climate  and  scenery.  To  this  barren  place 
came  irrigation  and  the  Anglo-Saxon,  bringing  a  new 
era  in  their  train. 

The  evolution  of  southern  California  may  be  studied 
in  the  experience  of  two  representative  colonies.  These 
are  Anaheim  and  Riverside.  Both  were  undertaken  by 
comparatively  poor  men,  and  made  important  contribu- 
tions to  the  permanent  prosperity  of  the  district  in  which 
they  settled.  The  success  which  they  achieved  and  the 
methods  by  which  they  accomplished  it  colored  and 
shaped  the  larger  institutions  which  grew  from  these 
pioneer  plantings.  Anaheim  owes  its  historical  impor- 
tance to  the  fact  that  it  was  the  mother  colony,  but  it 
gains  added  interest  as  an  example  of  the  way  in  which 
a  number  of  petty  capitalists  may  combine  their  means 
in  large  enterprises.     It  is  useful,  too,  as  showing  the 

U 


<    S5 
■A   ?= 


EVOLUTION  OF  SOUTHERN  CALIFORNIA 

outcome  of  the  settlement  of  city  workingmen  on  agri- 
cultural lands.  Riverside  represents  a  higher  degree  of 
social  conditions,  and  is  especially  important  and  inter- 
esting as  an  example  of  the  influence  exerted  by  an  en- 
tirely new  element  of  population  upon  a  country  which 
had  been  neither  developed  nor  appreciated  by  its  natives 
and  early  settlers.  A  brief  glance  at  the  beginnings  of 
these  two  communities  is  essential  to  any  just  compre- 
hension of  the  condition  and  tendencies  of  the  southern 
California  of  to-day. 

Anaheim  was  projected  nearly  fifty  years  ago  by  Ger- 
mans from  San  Francisco.  They  were  all  mechanics 
and  small  tradesmen,  and  each  was  possessed  of  a  modest 
amount  of  savings.  It  was  proposed  that  this  capital 
should  be  united  in  a  common  fund  and  used  for  the 
purchase  and  improvement  of  a  large  tract  of  land.  For 
this  purpose  a  colony  association  was  formed,  the  mem- 
bers paying  one  hundred  dollars  each  and  agreeing  to 
make  further  contributions  in  monthly  instalments.  A 
committee  was  sent  out  to  discover  a  good  location  and 
contract  for  its  purchase.  A  body  of  land  near  the  Santa 
Ana  river,  twenty-five  miles  southeast  of  Los  Angeles, 
was  chosen.  A  part  of  the  colony  was  then  detailed  to 
build  an  irrigation  canal,  divide  the  land  into  twenty- 
acre  farms,  with  a  central  village,  and  plant  the  whole 
tract  in  orchards  and  vineyards.  In  the  mean  time  the 
main  body  of  the  association  remained  in  San  Francisco, 
earning  money  and  sustaining  the  work  in  the  field. 
When  the  colony  had  thus  been  completely  prepared  for 
occupancy,  the  settlers  came  with  their  families,  build- 
ing their  houses  in  the  village  and  assigning  the  farms 
to  individuals  by  drawing  lots.    In  order  to  make  this  di- 

95 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

vision  equitable,  those  who  obtained  the  choicest  property 
paid  a  premium,  which  was  divided  among  those  to  whom 
the  poorer  places  had  fallen.  Most  of  the  colonists  devoted 
themselves  exclusively  to  agriculture,  but  enough  opened 
small  shops  and  worked  at  their  trades  as  blacksmiths, 
carpenters,  painters,  shoemakers,  and  tailors,  to  meet 
the  needs  of  the  community.  With  the  division  of  the 
land  the  association  settled  its  accounts,  and  only  the  ir- 
rigation canal  remained  public  property.  Co-operation 
had  served  an  excellent  purpose,  however,  in  enabling 
the  people  to  obtain  their  land  at  first  cost,  and  to  have 
it  improved  skilfully  and  economically  in  advance  of 
their  coming. 

Beyond  the  hope  of  dwelling  beneath  their  own  roofs 
and  working  for  themselves,  the  founders  of  Anaheim 
had  brought  no  special  ideal  to  the  southern  valley. 
They  were  people  of  common  tastes,  well  content  with 
simple  prosperity  and  comfort.  The  community  was 
thoroughly  successful.  It  is  also  possible  to  record  an 
almost  uniform  story  of  individual  ease  of  life  for  the 
settlers.  While  a  few  became  discouraged  and  sold  out 
to  their  neighbors,  much  the  greater  number  remained 
and  became  comfortably  well  off,  while  a  few  rose  to 
wealth.  They  had  come  to  the  colony  from  the  employ- 
ments of  city  life,  yet  readily  adapted  themselves  to  the 
work  of  tilling  the  soil  of  their  small  farms.  But  the 
true  importance  of  Anaheim  was  seen  in  the  impulse 
which  it  gave  to  a  new  form  of  development  in  southern 
California.  It  had  been  a  region  of  great  ranches, 
where  live-stock  and  grain  held  almost  complete  sway. 
Anaheim  pointed  the  way  to  the  subdivision  of  large  es- 
tates and  the  intensive  cultivation  of  the  soil  with  the 

96 


k 


EVOLUTION  OF  SOUTHERN  CALIFORNIA 

aid  of  irrigation.  This  demonstration  was  destined  to 
work  a  revolution  in  the  character  of  the  people  and 
country.  , 

The  Riverside  Colony,  perhaps  the  most  widely  cele- 
brated of  any  of  these  communities,  is  a  better  example 
of  the  colonial  life  of  California.  In  a  truer  sense  than 
Anaheim,  it  is  a  product  of  irrigation,  and  it  illustrates 
more  fully  than  the  mother  colony  the  social  possibili- 
ties inherent  in  this  form  of  agriculture.  Its  history 
reveals  a  curious  struggle  between  the  forces  of  co-op- 
eration and  of  private  enterprise,  in  the  course  of  which 
both  lent  much  strength  to  the  colony  and  exerted  a 
marked  influence  upon  its  fortunes.  Like  most  of  the 
pioneer  settlements.  Riverside  was  the  dream  of  com- 
paratively poor  men  who  sought,  in  the  fresh  opportuni- 
ties of  a  new  country,  better  conditions  for  themselves 
and  their  children.  The  enterprise  originated  with 
Judge  North,  of  Knoxville,  Tennessee.  His  prospectus 
was  issued  from  that  place  in  the  spring  of  1870,  and 
evoked  a  large  response  from  many  different  States.  In 
this  prospectus  the  founder  did  not  undertake  to  out- 
line a  social  organization  with  any  detail. 

"Appreciating  the  advantages  of  associative  settle- 
ment," ran  the  circular,  "  we  aim  to  secure  at  least  one 
hundred  good  families  who  can  invest  one  thousand 
dollars  each  in  the  purchase  of  land ;  while  at  the  same 
time  we  invite  all  good,  industrious  people  to  join  us  who 
can,  by  investing  a  smaller  amount,  contribute  in  any 
degree  to  the  general  prosperity."  The  advantage  of 
co-operative  over  individual  settlement  was  rather  for- 
cibly expressed:  "Experience  in  the  "West  has  demon- 
strated that  one  hundred  dollars  invested  in  a  colony 
o  97 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

is  worth  one  thousand  dollars  invested  in  an  isolated  lo- 
cality." That  the  projectors  had  formed  a  very  decided 
opinion  as  to  the  most  favorable  location  is  evident  in 
the  following:  **We  do  not  expect  to  buy  as  much  land 
for  the  same  money  in  southern  California  as  we  could 
obtain  in  parts  of  Colorado  or  Wyoming;  but  we  ex- 
pect it  to  be  worth  more  in  proportion  to  cost  than  any 
other  land  we  could  purchase  within  the  United  States. 
It  will  cost  something  more  to  get  to  California  than  it 
would  to  reach  the  States  this  side  of  the  mountains, 
but  we  are  very  confident  that  the  superior  advantages 
of  soil  and  climate  will  compensate  us  many  times  over 
for  this  increased  expense." 

His  circular  had  attracted  the  attention  of  a  few  men 
of  considerable  meanS;,  and  with  these  Judge  North 
set  out  for  California  to  select  the  site  of  the  under- 
taking. With  the  rare  intuition  which  eastern  men 
have  frequently  displayed  in  going  to  the  West,  the  new- 
comers selected  a  location  which  seemed  quite  preposter- 
ous to  the  natives  of  the  country.  Planning  the  most 
ideal  development  which  had  thus  far  been  attempted, 
they  deliberately  bought  lands  which  had  formerly  been  as- 
sessed at  a  valuation  of  seventy-five  cents  an  acre.  These 
lands  then  constituted  a  sheep  pasture  of  inferior  sort. 
They  were  similar  to  the  stretch  of  desert  which  the 
transcontinental  traveller  sees  in  passing  through  Ari- 
zona. After  the  winter  rains  they  bore  a  short-lived 
crop  of  wild  flowers,  but  during  most  of  the  year  they 
offered  nothing  more  attractive  than  sage-brush  and 
mesquite.  The  Mexican  who  owned  them  had  not  suffi- 
cient imagination  to  perceive  how  the  new  proprietors 
could  realize  a  profit  upon  the  modest  sum  of  two  dol- 

98 


EVOLUTION  OF  SOUTHERN  CALIFORNIA 

lars  and  a  half  an  acre,  for  which  he  gladly  sold  them. 
But  Judge  North  and  his  friends  had  two  well-defined 
ideas  in  their  brains.  One  was  irrigation ;  the  other, 
oranges.  To  the  natives  the  first  seemed  impracticable, 
because  of  the  expense;  and  the  other  ridiculous,  be- 
cause no  one  had  ever  raised  oranges  there  upon  a  com- 
mercial scale. 

The  Santa  Ana  river  rises  in  the  Sierra  Madre  moun- 
tains, drawing  its  volume  from  a  multitude  of  springs 
and  canyon  streams.  It  flows  southwesterly  for  a  dis- 
tance of  seventy  miles,  where  it  empties  into  the  ocean. 
Riverside  is  about  twenty  miles  from  the  source  of  the 
stream,  and  lies  on  the  bluffs  along  its  eastern  bank. 
The  conditions  did  not  present  such  opportunities  for 
the  cheap  and  easy  diversion  of  the  waters  as  the  Mor- 
mon pioneers  found  in  Utah.  In  later  years,  as  the  de- 
mand for  irrigation  grew  constantly  larger  and  more 
insistent,  it  became  necessary  to  resort  to  the  very  high- 
est type  of  works  for  the  distribution  of  water,  and  even 
the  earliest  canal  required  a  cash  outlay  of  fifty  thou- 
sand dollars.  Fortunately  the  capital  was  available,  and 
thus  the  work  of  development  went  forward  without  fal- 
tering. The  original  canal  was  completed  in  the  spring 
of  1871. 

The  enterprise  had  resolved  itself  into  a  private  stock 
company,  owning  both  the  land  and  the  water.  The 
land  was  now  sold  to  the  colonists  for  twenty-five  dollars 
an  acre.  This  included  the  right  to  purchase  a  certain 
amount  of  water,  for  which  there  was  an  extra  charge  in 
the  form  of  an  annual  rental.  At  the  beginning  this 
amounted  to  about  one  dollar  an  acre,  but  it  rose  with 
the  demand  for  water,  and  the  need  of  costly  improve- 

99 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

ments  in  the  system,  until  it  reached  an  annual  charge 
of  ten  dollars  an  acre. 

In  the  experience  of  Riverside  we  may  see  the  com- 
mercial romance  of  irrigation  in  its  most  striking  form. 
The  original  sheep  pasture,  assessed  at  seventy-five  cents 
an  acre,  sold  readily  at  twenty-five  dollars  an  acre  when 
irrigation  facilities  had  been  supplied.  While  this  re- 
presented a  handsome  profit  to  the  original  investors, 
it  was  extremely  moderate  compared  with  the  returns 
which  the  second  purchasers  realized.  A  few  years 
later  the  unimproved  lands  sold  for  prices  ranging  from 
three  hundred  to  five  hundred  dollars  per  acre.  The 
improved  orange  orchards,  which  had  been  evolved  from 
the  sheep  pasture,  were  valued,  and  actually  sold,  at 
one  thousand  to  two  thousand  dollars  per  acre.  There 
have  been  years  when  the  best  of  them  earned  a  profit  of 
fifty  per  cent,  on  the  higher  figure. 

Riverside  was  destined  to  win  its  chief  celebrity  as  the 
pioneer  orange  colony.  Its  founders  had  based  their 
faith  in  the  possibilities  of  this  industry  on  what  they 
had  seen  in  the  gardens  of  old  missions. 

They  did  not  hesitate  to  plant  their  lands  largely  with 
citrus  fruits  in  the  face  of  many  predictions  of  disaster. 
The  new  culture  prospered  from  the  start,  but  made  se- 
vere demands  upon  the  patience  and  intelligence  of  the 
settlers.  During  the  same  years  in  which  the  Greeley 
colonists  were  working  out,  by  means  of  experiment  and 
painful  experience,  the  solution  of  agricultural  problems 
for  Colorado,  the  Riverside  colonists  were  performing 
precisely  the  same  service  for  southern  California.  The 
skill  and  the  enterprise  which  the  one  people  applied  to 
potatoes,  the  other  applied  to  oranges,  with  the  same 

100 


EVOLUTION  OF   SOUTHERN  CALIFORNIA 

high  results.  The  Riverside  colonists  not  only  exhaust- 
ed their  own  sources  of  information  on  the  subject  of 
citrus  culture,  but  induced  the  State  Department  at 
Washington  to  make  its  consuls  in  semi-tropical  coun- 
tries their  agents.  In  this  way  they  were  enabled  to  learn 
all  that  foreign  horticulturists  knew  about  the  business. 
They  made  constant  progress  in  improving  the  standard 
of  their  fruit,  their  most  marked  triumph  in  this  direction 
being  the  production  of  the  Washington  navel,  or  seedless, 
orange.  Their  orchards  represented  all  the  choicest 
varieties,  which  were  cultivated  with  the  highest  skill. 
The  original  colony  tract  of  two  thousand  acres  has  been 
gradually  extended  until  it  includes  ten  thousand.  The 
shipment  of  oranges  has  risen  to  six  thousand  carloads 
annually,  realizing  about  three  million  dollars. 

The  projector  of  Riverside  had  framed  his  prospectus 
on  the  lines  of  co-operative  effort.  We  have  seen  that 
the  enterprise  speedily  became  private  and  speculative  in 
character.  This  result  was  mostly  due  to  the  necessity 
of  using  large  capital  for  the  initial  development,  and  to 
the  fact  that  the  colony  included  a  group  of  individuals 
who  possessed  considerable  means.  Possibly  the  same 
result  might  have  occurred  in  Utah  if  the  Mormon  pio- 
neers had  not  enjoyed  a  fortunate  equality  in  the  matter 
of  poverty.  In  Utah  there  was  no  capital  except  labor 
and  brains,  and  these  admitted  of  no  other  form  of  en- 
terprise than  pure  co-operation. 

The  speculative  instinct  which  took  possession  of  River- 
side and  ran  a  mad  race  through  southern  California,  ac- 
complished much  good,  as  well  as  much  evil.  And  in  the 
end  the  pioneer  orange  colony  returned  very  closely  to 
the  original  ideal  of  its  founder.     The  principal  irriga- 

101 


THE    CONQUEST    OF   ARID    AMERICA 

tion  system  became  in  time  the  property  of  the  people, 
and  the  water-rights  were  inseparably  associated  with  the 
land.  The  orange-growers  also  found  it  necessary  to  seek 
refuge  from  the  rapacity  of  the  commission  system  in  the 
adoption  of  co-operation  for  the  sale  of  their  product. 
Hence,  in  the  two  most  vital  features  of  their  industry 
— the  watering  of  their  lands  and  the  handling  of  their 
crops  —  Riverside  is  fully  realizing  to-day  the  hopes  in 
which  it  was  originally  conceived.  On  the  side  of  its 
social  life  it  has  never  departed  from  its  first  ideal,  and 
it  is  in  this  aspect  that  it  may  be  studied  to  the  best  ad- 
vantage. 

The  homes  and  avenues  of  this  colony,  which  have 
been  evolved  from  an  inferior  sheep  pasture  in  less  than 
a  generation,  are  among  the  most  beautiful  in  the  world. 
In  considering  their  widely  celebrated  charms,  it  should 
never  be  forgotten  that  these  are  the  homes  and  sur- 
roundings of  average  people,  and  that  they  earn  their 
living  by  tilling  the  soil.  Making  due  allowance  for  cli- 
matic differences,  there  are  equally  beautiful  residence 
districts  in  the  suburbs  of  great  eastern  cities ;  but  these 
belong  to  people  who  enjoy  a  degree  of  prosperity  much 
above  the  average — to  the  small  minority  who  are  rich, 
or  at  least  unusually  well-to-do.  They  are  not  farmers, 
but  business  or  professional  men  who  have  risen  above 
the  general  level  of  society.  At  Riverside,  on  the  other 
hand,  at  least  ninety  per  cent,  of  the  total  population 
live  in  homes  which  front  on  beautiful  boulevards,  pre- 
senting to  the  passer  an  almost  unbroken  view  of  well- 
kept  lawns,  opulent  flower-beds,  and  delicate  shrubbery. 
Newspaper  carriers  canter  through  these  streets  deliver- 
ing the  local  morning  and  evening  dailies.     Though  this 

103 


EVOLUTION   OF  SOUTHERN  CALIFORNIA 

is  a  farming  population,  the  homes  are  so  close  together 
that  the  people  enjoy  the  convenience  of  free  postal  de- 
livery. They  fill  their  bath-tubs  with  water  piped 
through  the  streets.  They  light  their  homes  with  elec- 
tricity. In  the  centre  of  the  colony  they  have  fine  stores, 
churches,  hotels,  and  public  halls.  Their  schools  are  of 
the  highest  standard,  and  are  housed  in  buildings  the 
beauty  and  convenience  of  which  bespeak  the  good  pub- 
lic taste.  A  well-patronized  institution  is  the  club-house 
and  its  reading-room.  There  is  but  a  single  saloon,  and 
it  is  considered  decidedly  disreputable  to  frequent  it. 

The  first  result  of  the  early  colonies  was  to  give  a  tre- 
mendous impetus  to  the  settlement  and  development 
of  southern  California.  The  fruits  of  this  new  impulse 
are  seen  in  the  scores  of  charming  communities  which 
stretch  eastward  to  the  margin  of  the  Colorado  desert 
and  southward  to  the  border  of  Mexico.  Redlands,  On- 
tario, and  Pomona  are  typical  examples.  The  impres- 
sive city  of  Los  Angeles,  which  grows  alike  in  good  times 
and  in  bad,  is  another  product  of  the  movement  which 
traces  back  to  the  humble  beginnings  of  these  pioneer 
settlements  established  by  a  superior  class  of  eastern 
emigrants.  High  land  values  and  costly  irrigation  works 
have  naturally  resulted.  But  these  are  only  the  super- 
ficial evidences  of  economic  forces  which  lie  deeper,  and 
which  should  be  noted  as  the  peculiar  product  of  the 
colonial  life  of  southern  California. 

The  germ  of  Riverside,  and  of  the  civilization  which 
it  inaugurated  in  the  San  Bernardino  Valley,  is  the  small 
farm  made  possible  by  irrigation.  This  is  alone  respon- 
sible for  the  character  of  industrial  and  social  institu- 
tions and  of  the  people  who  sustain  them.     Where  farms 

103 


THE  CONQUEST  OF  ARID  AMERICA 

are  very  small — in  Riverside  they  are  from  five  to  ten 
acres  in  size — they  necessarily  belong  to  the  many.  This 
means  a  class  of  small  landed  proprietors  at  the  base  of 
society.  The  condition  is  one  which  forbids  the  exist- 
ence of  a  mass  of  servile  labor  like  that  which  lives  upon 
the  cotton  plantations  of  the  South,  and,  to  a  greater  or 
less  extent,  upon  large  farms  everywhere,  including  the 
greater  part  of  California  itself.  On  a  small  farm  the 
proprietary  family  does  most  of  the  work.  Hence  the 
main  part  of  the  population  in  such  districts  as  Riverside 
is  independent  and  self-employing. 

The  people  of  southern  California  are  plainly  moving 
along  the  line  which  leads  to  public  ownership  of  public 
utilities  and  co-operative  management  of  commercial 
affairs.  But  with  them  the  movement  is  an  economic 
growth  rather  than  a  political  agitation.  It  is  the  logi- 
cal outcome  of  their  environment  and  necessities.  A 
great  body  of  producers  and  proprietors  of  the  soil,  they 
formerly  stood  between  private  irrigation  systems,  sup- 
plying the  life-current  of  their  fields,  and  private  com- 
mission houses,  furnishing  the  only  outlet  for  their  prod- 
ucts. The  condition  was  an  intolerable  one,  since  it  made 
them  utterly  dependent  upon  agencies  beyond  their  con- 
trol. These  instrumentalities  the  people  are  rapidly 
taking  into  their  own  hands,  and  it  is  inconceivable  that 
they  can  ever  again  pass  into  private  control.  It  is  prob- 
able that  California  has  seen  almost  the  last  of  the  at- 
tempts to  establish  the  policy  of  private  ownership  of  irri- 
gation works,  the  most  vital  of  all  public  utilities  in  arid 
regions.  The  system  of  co-operative  fruit  exchanges  is 
carried  forward  by  the  same  impulse.  Already  it  handles 
more  than  half  the  enormous  product.     The  producers 

104 


EVOLUTION  OF  SOUTHERN  CALIFORNIA 

have  their  own  packing-houses,  make  cash  advances  to 
their  members,  and  send  their  agents  to  represent  them 
in  distant  markets. 

It  is  pleasant  to  note  that  beautifnl  homes  and  high 
average  prosperity  have  not  spoiled  the  democratic  sim- 
plicity of  these  communities.  After  the  adjournment  of 
the  International  Irrigation  Congress  at  Los  Angeles  in 
1893,  its  members  enjoyed  the  hospitalities  of  many  of 
the  charming  colonies  in  the  neighborhood.  In  his  re- 
marks at  a  banquet  tendered  the  party  by  the  people  of 
Santa  Ana,  Seflor  de  Ybarrola,  the  representative  of 
Mexico,  paid  a  handsome  compliment  to  the  ladies  who 
had  waited  upon  the  table.  Afterwards  one  of  the  dis- 
tinguished representatives  of  France  remarked  his  sur- 
prise at  hearing  a  public  compliment  to  "  the  servants." 

"What!"  exclaimed  Seflor  de  Ybarrola,  "did  you 
think  they  were  servants  ?  Why,  those  were  the  leading 
ladies  of  Santa  Ana." 

"  Do  you  mean  to  tell  me,"  the  French  delegate  de- 
manded, in  amazement,  "  that  the  leading  ladies  of  Santa 
Ana  put  on  aprons  to  serve  strangers  ?" 

"  Certainly,"  the  Mexican  replied  ;  "for  in  this  coun- 
try service  is  a  title  to  respect." 

The  incident  illustrates  at  once  the  hospitality  and  the 
equality  which  are  characteristic  of  the  social  life  of 
southern  California. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  REVOLUTION"  ON  THE  PLAIN'S 

The  semi-arid  portion  of  the  Great  Plains  constitutes 
a  distinct  division  of  the  irrigation  empire.  Its  history 
and  its  problems  are  peculiarly  its  own.  Daring  the  last 
half  century  it  has  lived  through  three  stirring  and  ro- 
mantic epochs  and  entered  upon  a  fourth.  This  last  is 
one  of  absorbing  human  interest,  and  will  doubtless 
shape  the  permanent  civilization  of  the  region. 

When  Francis  Parkman  and  the  Mormon  pioneers  tra- 
versed the  country,  late  in  the  forties,  it  swarmed  with 
herds  of  buffalo  and  tribes  of  hostile  Indians.  It  was  the 
era  of  savagery,  broken  only  by  the  presence  of  a  few 
frontier  posts,  which  served  as  the  occasional  refuge  of 
adventurers  and  hunters. 

Almost  miraculously  the  buffalo  disappeared,  and  the 
red  men  retreated  before  the  white  wave  which  over- 
flowed the  western  bank  of  the  Mississippi  and  began 
gradually  to  people  the  eastern  margin  of  the  plains. 
Then  the  savagery  of  the  desert  suddenly  gave  way  to 
the  semi- barbarism  of  an  epoch  of  cattle-kings  and  cow- 
boys. 

Just  as  the  Indian  and  the  trapper  had  surrendered  to 
the  cowboy  and  his  herds,  so  the  latter  in  their  turn  re- 
ceded and  largely  disappeared  before  another  element 

106 


THE    REVOLUTION    ON    THE    PLAINS 

which  now  swiftly  arose  in  the  life  of  the  Great  Plains. 
The  third  era  of  American  colonization,  noted  in  a  pre- 
vious chapter,  was  yet  at  the  stage  of  flood-tide.  New 
railroads  were  pushing  their  iron  highways  westward 
across  the  prairie.  Such  entrepdts  as  Chicago,  St.  Paul, 
Omaha,  and  Kansas  City  were  crowded  with  hopeful  im- 
migrants whose  appetite  for  government  land  had  been 
whetted  by  the  stories  of  prosperity  with  which  the  news- 
papers teemed.  Horace  Greeley's  famous  injunction, 
"  Go  west,  young  man,"  still  rang  in  the  ears  of  am- 
bitious youth  and  homeless  middle-age.  Laud  agents 
urged  on  the  multitudes  with  a  zeal  born  of  the  com- 
missions on  which  it  fed. 

In  the  enthusiasm  of  the  hour  no  one  gave  heed  to  the 
few  croakers  who  hinted  that  there  was  somewhere  a 
mysterious  boundary-line  beyond  which  all  efforts  at  set- 
tlement must  be  disastrous.  There  was  a  theory  that 
rainfall  moved  westward  with  population,  and  that  the 
cultivation  of  the  land  wrought  changes  in  climatic  con- 
ditions. Under  these  circumstances  it  was  not  strange 
that  the  home-seeking  hosts  crossed  the  unknown  boun- 
dary into  the  region  of  scant  rainfall,  and  learned  in  hard- 
ship and  bitterness  the  lessons  which  a  more  cautious  and 
far-seeing  government  would  have  comprehended  and 
taught  to  its  children. 

In  the  absence  of  such  scientific  determination  of  the 
conditions  of  the  country,  tens  of  thousands  expended  all 
their  money  and  the  most  precious  years  of  their  lives 
in  discovering  what  could  not  be  done  in  the  semi-arid 
region.  The  crushing  and  pathetic  truth  that  nature 
had  denied  sufficient  rainfall  for  the  production  of  crops 
in  a  region  where  a  multitude  of  people  had  made  their 

107 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

homes  dawned  slowly  upon  the  public  mind,  and  the  con- 
clusion was  stubbornly  resisted. 

Between  the  acknowledgment  of  this  fact  and  the  be- 
ginning of  practical  efforts  looking  to  the  use  of  irri- 
gation, there  was  a  brief  but  exciting  intermediate  stage 
in  which  high  hopes  were  built  upon  the  possibility  of 
precipitating  rain  by  artificial  means.  An  Australian 
genius  suddenly  appeared  with  a  mysterious  prescription 
warranted  to  assemble  clouds  in  a  clear  sky  and  compel 
them  to  weep  in  the  shape  of  copious  showers.  The  end 
of  this  undertaking  was  the  failure  of  the  experiment 
and  the  suicide  of  the  inventor.  One  of  the  railways  dis- 
covered another  wizard  with  another  prescription,  and 
hauled  his  special  car  over  the  entire  length  of  its  line, 
promising  showers  on  regular  schedule  time.  Even  the 
Agricultural  Department  at  Washington  expended  several 
thousand  dollars  in  experiments  in  this  direction.  In 
this  case,  however,  there  was  no  mystery  about  the  method 
adopted.  It  was  the  use  of  powerful  explosives  to  be 
discharged  at  a  high  elevation.  As  nobody  denied  that 
heavy  showers  frequently  followed  great  battles,  and  that 
it  generally  rained  on  the  night  of  the  Fourth  of  July, 
there  were  high  hopes  for  the  success  of  this  undertaking, 
which  occurred  on  an  elaborate  scale  in  Texas.  Secre- 
tary Rusk  described  the  preparations  in  detail,  and  sum- 
marized the  outcome  in  the  sententious  remark :  "  The 
result  was — a  loud  noise  I"  The  theory  exploded  with 
the  dynamite  and  disappeared  from  the  minds  of  men 
with  the  last  reverberation  on  the  Texas  prairies. 

The  mysterious  line  which  divides  the  region  of  fairly 
reliable  rainfall  from  the  land  of  sunshine  has  been  dis- 
covered at  last  and  generally  accepted.     This,  as  stated 

108 


THE    REVOLUTION    ON    THE    PLAINS 

before,  is  the  ninety-seventh  meridian  west  from  Green- 
wich. It  divides  the  United  States  almost  exactly  into 
halves,  running  through  the  middle  of  North  Dakota, 
South  Dakota,  Nebraska,  Kansas,  Indian  Territory,  and 
Texas.  The  vast  territory  lying  between  this  meridian 
and  the  foothills  of  the  Rockies,  bounded  on  the  north 
by  Canada  and  on  the  south  by  Mexico,  is  the  semi -arid 
region  of  the  Great  Plains.  Over  all  this  vast  district 
the  tide  of  settlement  had  flowed  and  ebbed  again,  as  we 
have  seen.  It  now  awaits  the  full  development  of  the 
fourth  epoch  in  its  eventful  and  romantic  history.  The 
character  and  extent  of  this  development  is  governed  by 
the  nature  of  the  water  supply,  which  differs  materially 
in  the  several  States. 

The  utility  of  irrigation  on  the  plains  was  revealed  in 
a  curious  way.  In  Finney  county,  near  the  western  bor- 
der of  Kansas,  thousands  of  acres  were  planted  to  wheat 
in  the  summer  of  1878,  and  it  seemed  the  sanest  of  proj- 
ects to  build  a  grist-mill  to  grind  the  crop.  This  was 
undertaken  near  the  Arkansas  river  by  enterprising 
merchants  in  the  neighboring  community  of  Garden 
City,  but  the  new  institution  began  and  ended  with  a 
mill-race.  Before  the  building  and  machinery  were  re- 
quired, the  wheat  had  surrendered  to  dry  air  and  hot 
winds.  Not  an  acre  of  the  crop  was  harvested.  And 
yet  the  blighted  seed  was  destined  to  bear  another  and 
far  more  fateful  crop  and  the  forgotten  mill-race  on  the 
banks  of  the  Arkansas  to  grind  a  grist  that  would  prove 
historic. 

A  few  settlers  remained  to  rake  amid  the  ashes  of 
their  ruined  hopes.  Among  them  was  a  man  who  had 
learned  the  methods  of  irrigation  while  living  in  Call- 

109 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

fornia  and  Colorado.  It  happened  that  his  land  ad- 
joined the  abandoned  mill-race,  and  he  readily  obtained 
the  right  to  turn  the  water  upon  a  part  of  his  farm. 
The  result,  though  not  surprising  to  the  practised  irri- 
gator, was  a  revelation  to  his  thoroughly  disheartened 
neighbors.  The  soil  which  produced  nothing  in  the 
previous  summer  responded  to  the  new  method  of  culti- 
vation with  enormous  crops  of  all  varieties  of  products. 
In  quality  they  surpassed  anything  previously  grown  in 
that  region.  As  these  facts  became  known  a  new  hope 
arose,  like  a  star  in  the  night,  against  the  dark  back- 
ground of  past  discouragements.  The  Garden  City 
'*  experiment "  became  the  Mecca  of  students  of  irrigation 
throughout  the  wide  region  devastated  by  the  drought. 
The  ruined  crop  of  the  previous  year  and  the  useless 
mill-race  gave  birth  to  an  influence  which  in  fifteen 
years  has  assumed  far-reaching  proportions. 

Kansas  is  the  mother  of  irrigation  on  the  plains.  When 
the  people  heard  of  the  miracle  wrought  by  the  waters 
of  the  abandoned  mill-race  their  optimism  instantly  fore- 
told a  better  civilization  than  they  had  dreamed  of. 
Irrigation  began  here  with  canal-building  in  the  valley 
of  the  Arkansas  river.  For  a  time  the  work  was  prose- 
cuted with  remarkable  vigor.  As  early  as  1890  over 
four  hundred  miles  of  large  canals  had  been  built,  at  a 
cost  of  nearly  three  million  dollars.  But  the  industry 
came  suddenly  face  to  face  with  an  unexpected  and 
almost  fatal  obstacle. 

The  Arkansas  river  rises  in  the  mountains  of  Colo- 
rado and  waters  a  broad  and  fertile  valley  before  cross- 
ing the  boundary  into  Kansas.  In  the  upper  State 
enterprise  was  busy  with  the  diversion   of  its  waters. 

110 


THE  REVOLUTION  ON  THE  PLAINS 

In  the  absence  of  any  regnlation  of  interstate  streams 
by  national  authority,  the  Colorado  irrigators  claimed 
the  right  to  take  the  last  drop  of  water  for  their  own 
canals.  This  they  proceeded  to  do  during  the  growing 
season,  leaving  the  canals  of  western  Kansas  as  dry  as 
its  prairies.  The  investment  of  an  English  company  in 
extensive  works  costing  more  than  a  million  dollars  was 
practically  destroyed  by  this  turn  of  affairs.  There  were 
many  similar  losses  of  less  magnitude.  It  was  at  this 
stage  that  the  lamented  humorist  "Bill  Nye"  remarked 
of  some  of  the  western  rivers  that  "  they  are  a  mile  wide 
and  an  inch  thick — they  have  a  large  circulation,  but 
very  little  influence." 

When  the  Kansas  irrigators  found  themselves  deprived 
of  their  surface  supplies  they  sought  the  underflow,  and 
in  the  process  of  finding  and  utilizing  it  developed  an 
entirely  unique  and  very  promising  mode  of  irrigation. 

The  new  experiment  was  first  made  at  Garden  City, 
within  sight  of  the  historic  mill-race.  It  was  found  that 
in  the  Arkansas  Valley  water  could  be  obtained  by  shal- 
low wells  ranging  in  depth  from  eight  to  twenty  feet. 
This  is  raised  by  hundreds  of  wind-mills  into  hundreds 
of  small  reservoirs  constructed  at  the  highest  point  of 
each  farm.  The  uniform  eastward  slope  of  the  plains  is 
seven  feet  to  the  mile.  The  indefatigable  Kansas  wind 
keeps  the  mills  in  active  operation,  and  the  reservoirs 
are  always  full  of  water,  which  is  drawn  off  as  it  is  re- 
quired for  purposes  of  irrigation.  These  small  indi- 
vidual pumping-plants  have  certain  advantages  over  the 
canal  systems  which  prevail  elsewhere.  The  irrigator 
has  no  entangling  alliances  with  companies  or  co-oper- 
ative associations,  and  is  able  to  manage  the  water  supply 

111 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

without  deferring  to  the  convenience  of  others,  or  yield- 
ing obedience  to  rules  and  regulations  essential  to  the 
orderly  administration  of  systems  which  supply  large 
numbers  of  consumers.  The  original  cost  of  such  a 
plant,  exclusive  of  the  farmer's  own  labor  in  construct- 
ing his  reservoirs  and  ditches,  is  two  hundred  dollars, 
and  the  plant  sufl&ces  for  ten  acres.  The  farmer  thus 
pays  twenty  dollars  per  acre  (about  double  the  average 
price  paid  to  canal  systems  in  this  region)  for  a  per- 
petual guaranty  of  sufficient  "  rain "  to  produce  bounti- 
ful crops  ;  but  to  this  cost  must  be  added  two  dollars  per 
acre  as  the  annual  price  of  maintaining  the  system. 

Farming  under  these  conditions  is  limited  to  small 
areas,  and  intensive  methods  of  cultivation  become  im- 
perative. The  result  has  been  the  evolution  of  a  multi- 
tude of  five-,  ten-,  and  twenty-acre  farms,  each  sur- 
rounded by  its  tall  fringe  of  protecting  cottonwoods, 
which  inclose  grounds  variously  planted  to  orchard, 
field,  and  garden.  Perhaps  these  methods  present  a 
closer  parallel  to  European  agriculture  than  anything 
else  found  in  this  country,  while  the  numerous  wind- 
mills suggest  comparison  with  Holland.  Nowhere  are 
there  sharper  contrasts  than  that  which  is  presented  by 
these  green  and  fruitful  farms,  gleaming  like  islands  of 
verdure  upon  the  brown  bosom  of  the  far-stretching 
plains,  which  have  been  seared  by  the  hot  breath  of  rain- 
less winds. 

The  uses  of  the  artificial  reservoirs  are  not  limited  to 
irrigation;  they  are  usually  stocked  with  fish,  which 
multiply  with  surprising  rapidity  and  enable  the  farmer 
to  include  this  item  of  home  produce  in  his  bill  of  fare 
every  day  in  the  year.     These  fish  are  very  tame,  and  in 

112 


THE    REVOLUTION    ON    THE    PLAINS 

some  cases  actually  trained  to  respond  to  the  ringing 
of  the  dinner-bell,  coming  in  scurrying  shoals  to  fight 
for  crumbs  of  bread  thrown  upon  the  water.  (This  fish 
story  is  a  true  one.)  The  reservoirs  also  yield  a  profit- 
able crop  of  ice  in  the  winter.  When  we  compare  the 
hardships  and  bitterness  of  this  locality  but  a  few  years 
since  with  the  comfort  and  abundance  which  the  infin- 
itely smaller  farms  yield  to-day,  we  behold  anew  the  civ- 
ilizing power  of  irrigation.  The  Starvation  Belt  has  be- 
come a  Land  of  Plenty. 

The  centre  and  inspiration  of  these  developments  is 
Garden  City,  capital  of  Finney  county.  What  Greeley 
was  to  Colorado  and  Riverside  to  southern  California, 
this  little  town  has  been  to  western  Kansas.  Perhaps 
no  other  small  place  on  the  plains  suffered  a  more  vio- 
lent attack  of  **  boom"  than  Garden  City  in  the  feverish 
times  of  the  last  decade.  Certainly  none  has  held  with 
more  tenacity  to  its  confidence  in  the  final  outcome  of 
the  country  or  contributed  more  to  the  early  vindica- 
tion of  its  faith. 

It  is  difficult  to  estimate  the  reasonable  possibilities 
of  windmill  irrigation  in  Kansas.  There  are  enthusiasts 
who  insist  that  the  industry  will  be  extended  to  nearly 
every  acre,  uplands  as  well  as  valleys.  There  are  pessi- 
mists who  assert  that  the  amount  of  land  reclaimable  by 
such  means  is  relatively  very  small.  Of  this  subject  the 
conservative  hydrographer  of  the  United  States  Geo- 
logical Survey,  Mr.  Frederick  Haynes  Newell,  speaks  as 
follows : 

**The  existence  of  the  subsurface  waters  of  the  river 
valleys  of  western  Kansas  has  long  been  known.  Like 
every  other  natural  resource,  its  importance,  at  one  time 
H  113 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

little  recognized,  has  been  seized  upon  by  the  so-called 
*' boomers"  and  exaggerated  to  the  extent  of  creating 
distrust  and  depreciation.  It  is,  however,  one  of  the 
most  important  of  the  natural  advantages  of  the  State, 
and  one  upon  which  the  foundations  of  prosperity  must 
be  carefully  laid.  By  a  thorough  employment  of  the 
underground  waters,  with  the  best  methods,  much  of 
the  vacant  land  of  the  State  will  be  utilized  for  agricult- 
ure, and  the  remainder  can  become  a  source  of  revenue, 
indirectly  at  least.  Taking  the  Arkansas  Valley  as  best 
illustrating  these  conditions,  the  general  statement  may 
be  made  that  water  can  be  had  everywhere  within  the 
valley  at  moderate  depths,  and  in  quantities  such  as  to 
be  inexhaustible  to  ordinary  pumping  machinery  if  prop- 
erly installed." 

Referring  to  the  very  much  larger  territory  lying  out- 
side of  the  river  valleys,  the  same  authority  says : 

"  In  the  portions  of  western  and  central  Kansas  where 
wells  cannot  be  obtained  at  moderate  depth,  it  will  prob- 
ably be  practicable  to  store  considerable  volumes  of  water 
by  closing  the  outlets  of  natural  depressions.  Favorable 
localities,  although  somewhat  rare,  can  be  found  in  nearly 
every  county,  and  by  the  proper  construction  of  substan- 
tial earth-dams  considerable  volumes  of  water  can  be 
held  for  use  upon  the  lower  lands.  In  one  instance  at 
least  water  thus  stored  has  been  pumped  for  use  upon 
an  orchard,  and  the  success  attained  in  this  way  should 
induce  others  to  try  similar  devices." 

The  drought  of  1890  made  Nebraska  one  of  the  im- 
portant irrigation  States  of  the  West.  Canals  had  been 
built  on  the  North  Platte  river  near  the  Wyoming 
boundary,  several  years  earlier,  but  the  irrigation  indus- 

114 


THE  REVOLUTION  ON  THE  PLAINS 

try  had  won  no  general  recognition.  Thousands  of 
farmers  were  persisting  in  the  delusive  hope  of  rainfall 
farming,  and  public  sentiment  was  distinctly  opposed  to 
those  who  sought  to  include  Nebraska  in  the  arid  re- 
gion. 

All  this  was  changed  by  the  events  of  1890.  In  that 
year  crops  were  ruined  by  dry  weather  and  hot  winds 
throughout  a  large  part  of  the  State,  and  the  people  in 
the  western  counties  generally  acknowledged  that  it  was 
useless  to  longer  persist  in  the  effort  to  cultivate  the 
soil  without  artificial  moisture.  Strangely  enough,  they 
seemed  to  draw  a  new  inspiration  from  their  blighted 
fields.  Irrigation  conventions  were  held  at  many  county 
seats.  Tlie  study  of  water  resources,  of  methods  and 
laws  essential  to  their  utilization,  became  earnest  and 
general.  The  popular  agitation  rapidly  crystallized  into 
a  permanent  and  organized  movement  which  has  gath- 
ered strength  with  each  passing  year.  Comprehensive 
laws  were  enacted  by  the  legislature  and  the  office  of 
State  Engineer  created.  Meanwhile,  large  amounts  of 
private  capital  were  invested,  many  canals  constructed, 
and  the  despised  western  counties  began  to  rise  in  pub- 
lic esteem. 

It  is  now  clearly  apparent  that  the  very  lands  which 
refused  to  yield  a  return  for  the  industry  of  the  first  set- 
tlers will  sustain  the  densest  population  in  the  future 
and  give  the  most  absolute  assurance  of  permanent  pros- 
perity. Already  the  time  has  come  when  a  State  irriga- 
tion fair  can  be  held  in  western  Nebraska  and  make  a 
striking  exhibition  of  results,  and  when  a  commonwealth 
which  ten  years  ago  resented  as  a  libel  the  intimation 
that  its  rainfall  was  deficient,  can  proudly  claim  to  rank 

115 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

among  the  greatest  of  irrigation  States.  The  transforma- 
tion which  has  occurred  in  public  opinion  is  no  less 
striking  than  that  of  the  agricultural  industry  itself. 

The  State  is  more  fortunate  than  some  of  its  neighbors 
in  the  character  and  extent  of  its  water  supplies.  Over 
its  western  boundary  the  North  Platte  pours  a  perennial 
stream  of  considerable  volume,  which  feeds  a  number  of 
large  canals.  The  surface  flow  of  the  South  Platte 
is  mostly  absorbed  in  Colorado,  but  when  the  two  forks 
are  united  in  Lincoln  county  they  make  ^  river  of  re- 
spectable proportions,  which  flows  through  the  heart  of 
the  State  and  furnishes  water  both  from  its  surface  flow 
and  from  its  gravel  bed.  The  Loup  river  further  increases 
the  irrigation  facilities  in  the  central  counties.  In  the 
southwestern  part  of  the  State  the  Republican  and  its 
tributaries  supply  a  number  of  quite  extensive  irrigation 
systems.  Along  the  northwestern  boundary  the  Niobra- 
ra, a  noble  stream,  is  beginning  to  be  utilized. 

The  conformation  of  the  land  in  western  Nebraska 
also  offers  more  favorable  opportunities  for  the  storage 
of  flood  waters  than  are  found  in  most  of  the  prairie 
States.  The  possibility  of  irrigation  from  wells  by  means 
of  pumps  driven  by  windmills  and  by  steam  and  gaso- 
line engines,  are  also  being  thoroughly  tested,  with  hope- 
ful results.  The  experts  of  the  Geological  Survey  report 
that  even  away  from  the  river  valleys,  where  the  depth 
to  water  is  considerable,  small  farms  can  be  irrigated  by 
this  means  at  most  points.  This  conservative  authority  es- 
timates that  fully  one  million  and  a  half  of  acres  can  be 
irrigated  in  western  Nebraska.  Local  enthusiasts  put 
the  amount  very  much  higher,  but  even  the  former  fig- 
ure represents  a  reclaimed  area  three  times  greater  than 

116 


THE    REVOLUTION    ON    THE    PLAINS 

that  on  which  the  wonderful  agricultural  industry  of 
Utah  has  been  developed. 

The  Dakotas  are  comparatively  well  watered  by  surface 
streams,  but  they  flow  in  deep  channels,  and  the  uniform 
slope  of  the  land  to  the  eastward  is  only  about  one  foot 
to  the  mile.  Under  these  conditions  it  is  not  practicable 
to  divert  the  flow  by  gravity  canals,  though  it  is  some- 
times done  with  the  aid  of  pumping  machinery.  But 
the  Dakotas  rejoice  in  the  possession  of  great  artesian 
basins  and  of  some  of  the  largest  flowing  wells  in  the 
world.  Many  of  them  are  one  thousand  feet  in  depth, 
aud  some  of  them  furnish  the  remarkable  flow  of  four 
thousand  gallons  per  minute.  Over  sixteen  hundred 
artesian  wells  were  reported  in  these  two  States  as  early 
as  1891,  and  the  number  has  constantly  increased.  The 
irrigation  sentiment  has  been  well  organized  and  has  re- 
sulted in  the  provision  of  progressive  legislation. 

Texas  was  also  a  severe  sufferer  from  drought  through- 
out the  western  part  of  its  vast  territory.  The  greater 
portion  of  it  is  well  watered  by  rivers,  by  large  perennial 
springs,  and  by  artesian  wells  second  only  to  those  of 
Dakota.  Here  the  people  have  also  responded  with  high 
public  spirit  to  the  appeals  of  the  irrigation  champions, 
and  the  new  era  in  the  industrial  life  of  the  State  is  well 
under  way. 

The  actual  amount  of  land  that  may  be  reclaimed  and 
cultivated  in  the  semi-arid  region  furnishes  no  measure 
of  the  value  of  irrigation  to  this  vast  district.  By  en- 
abling thousands  to  engage  in  farming,  irrigation  has 
made  it  possible  to  use  the  surrounding  plains  as  the 
pasture  for  great  numbers  of  beef  cattle.  In  many  in- 
stances small  herds  are  owned  by  the  farmers  themselves, 

117 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID   AMERICA 

but  to  a  large  extent  their  crops  are  bought  by  those 
whose  sole  business  is  cattle-raising.  Thus  all  the  re- 
sources of  the  region  are  brought  into  use,  and  a  wonder- 
ful prosperity  has  followed  as  the  logical  result. 

From  Canada  to  Mexico  the  revolution  on  the  Great 
Plains  is  now  in  full  tide.  It  is  the  most  dramatic  page 
in  the  history  of  American  irrigation.  It  has  saved  an 
enormous  district  from  lapsing  into  a  condition  of  semi- 
barbarism.  It  has  not  only  made  human  life  secure,  but 
revolutionized  the  industrial  and  social  economy  of  the 
locality. 

To  a  considerable  extent  it  has  replaced  the  quarter- 
section  with  the  small  farm  and  the  single  crop  with 
diversified  cultivation.  It  has  transformed  the  specu- 
lative instincts  of  the  people  into  a  spirit  of  sober  in- 
dustrialism. It  has  raised  the  standard  of  living  and 
improved  the  character  of  homes.  It  has  planted  the 
rose-bush  and  the  pansies  where  only  the  sunflower  cast 
its  shadows,  and  it  has  twined  the  ivy  and  the  honeysuckle 
over  doors  which  formerly  knew  not  the  touch  of  beauty. 
It  has  made  neighbors  and  society  where  once  there  were 
loneliness  and  heart-hunger.  It  has  broken  the  chains 
of  hopeless  mortgages  and  crowned  industry  with  inde- 
pendence. 


patt  TTbfrd 

UNDEVELOPED   AMERICA 

"  Mighty  as  haa  been  our  past,  our  resources  have  just  been  touched 
upon,  and  there  is  wealth  beyond  the  Mississippi  which,  in  the  not 
distant  ftiture,  will  astonish  even  the  dwellers  on  the  shores  of  Liike 
Michigan. 

"  From  the  time  my  eyes  first  rested  on  the  great  uncultivated 
plains  which  lie  between  the  Mississippi  and  the  Pacific  Ocean,  my 
wakening  dreams  have  been  filled  with  visions  of  the  incalculable 
wealth  which  the  touch  of  living  water  will  bring  to  life  from  those 
voiceless  deserts.  There  wealth  only  can  produce  wealth,  and  man, 
singly  and  alone,  might  as  well  try  to  subdue  the  Himalayas  as  to 
cope  with  these  wastes  ;  but  the  band  of  united  and  associated  man 
is  already  reaching  forth  to  grasp  the  great  results. 

'*  The  same  power  which  wastes  millions  on  the  Mississippi  can 
be  utilized  to  make  the  desert  blossom  with  the  homes  of  men,  for 
whom  and  for  all  of  us  the  now  blighted  soil  will  bring  forth  the 
fruits  of  the  Garden  of  Eden." — Hon.  Thomas  B.  Rbbd,  in  a 
speech  at  Pittsburg,  1894. 


CHAPTER  I 
THE  EMPIRE  STATE  OP  THE  PACIFIC 

California  is  widely  celebrated,  but  little  known.  Its 
unique  climate  and  productions,  and  the  dramatic  inci- 
dents of  its  early  history,  have  been  deeply  impressed 
upon  the  popular  imagination  wherever  the  name  of  the 
Republic  is  spoken.  These  circumstances  have  given  it 
rank  among  the  most  famous  of  American  States ;  yet  its 
problems  and  its  future  are  inscrutable  enigmas  to  all 
who  have  not  studied  the  subject  at  close  range,  and  to 
many  who  have.  The  anomaly  that  one  of  the  States 
most  talked  of  should  be  one  of  the  least  understood  is 
not  diflBcult  to  explain. 

In  the  first  place,  California  is  known  not  by  what 
millions  of  people  have  seen,  but  by  what  millions  have 
read.  Europe  is  better  known  by  contact  to  Americans 
than  California.  A  prominent  American  orator  recently 
"  discovered  "  California,  and  filled  the  newspapers  with 
the  interesting  and  suggestive  impressions  it  had  made 
upon  his  mind.  He  had  been  to  Europe  twenty  times,  and 
to  the  Pacific  coast  once,  which  is  once  of  tener  than  many 
other  distinguished  travellers  of  the  eastern  seaboard. 

Still  further,  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  is  dealing  with  new 
conditions  in  California.  Coming  from  dense  forests, 
from  a  land  of  heavy  rainfall,  and  frpm  a  temperate 

121 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

climate  where  winters  are  long  and  stern,  it  settled  in 
treeless  deserts,  in  a  land  of  slight  and  peculiar  rainfall, 
and  under  a  sky  that  never  knows  the  winter. 

Finally,  California  is  in  its  infancy,  having  recently 
celebrated  its  fifty-fifth  birthday  as  an  American  com- 
monwealth. Born  in  a  paroxysm  of  speculation — one  of 
the  wildest  the  world  has  seen  —  it  has  outlived  a  trying 
experience  of  lesser  economic  epilepsy,  and  come  to  the 
threshold  of  its  true  career  strengthened  and  purified  by 
the  extraordinary  process.  In  less  than  half  a  century 
several  far-reaching  changes  have  swept  through  the  in- 
dustrial and  social  life  of  the  State,  swiftly  altering  the 
conditions  of  labor  and  of  business.  Even  for  those 
living  in  the  midst  of  these  events  it  has  been  difficult 
to  read  their  significance  and  estimate  their  influence  on 
the  ultimate  character  of  the  place  and  people. 

What  wonder,  then,  that  to  the  outside  world  Cali- 
fornia has  meantime  appeared  like  a  jumble  of  gold, 
palms,  and  oranges,  of  gilded  millionaires  and  hopeless 
paupers,  of  enviable  farmers  living  luxuriously  on  small 
sections  of  paradise,  and  of  servile  alien  laborers  herded 
in  stifling  tenements  ?  Such  are  the  conflicting  aspects 
of  the  Golden  State  to  those  who  view  it  from  afar.  What 
are  the  facts  ? 

The  literature  of  California  is  prolific.  Perhaps  no 
other  locality  in  the  United  States  has  been  so  often  writ- 
ten about.  In  dealing  with  a  place  which  presents  so 
many  strange  and  fascinating  features  it  is  easy  for  praise 
to  become  extravagance.  This  is  now  so  well  understood 
that  it  is  commonly  thought  that  the  words  "Cali- 
f  ornian  "  and  "  veracity  "  are  seldom  synonymous.  But 
the  truth  is  that  visitors  from  abroad  have  contributed 

122 


EMPIRE    STATE    OF   THE    PACIFIC 

rather  more  than  Californians  themselves  to  the  popular 
impression  of  the  State  and  its  wonders.  It  is  the  fleet- 
ing tourist  rather  than  the  permanent  resident  who  be- 
comes the  more  reckless  partisan  of  the  charming  climate, 
the  majestic  scenery,  and  the  vast  resources  which,  to 
his  exhilarated  imagination,  seem  certain  to  burst  into 
their  full  potentiality  in  the  immediate  future. 

Without  doubt,  the  most  influential  books  ever  written 
about  California  were  those  of  Mr.  Charles  Nordhoff. 
His  Califoryiia:  for  Healthy  PleasurCy  and  Residence 
(1873),  and  Northern  California  (1874),  had  a  great 
vogue  at  the  time  of  their  publication,  and  for  many  years 
after.  Th oy  are  as  fresh  and  readable  to-day  as  when 
written,  and  it  is  easy  to  understand  why  they  should 
have  exercised  so  powerful  an  influence  in  making  public 
opinion.  Mr.  Nordhoff  should  not  be  confounded  with 
the  superficial  enthusiasts  who  study  the  country  only 
from  car-windows  and  the  verandas  of  luxurious  hotels. 
Addressing  his  books  "  to  travellers  and  settlers,"  he  evi- 
dently realized  the  grave  responsibility  of  the  undertak- 
ing, and  made  a  conscientious  effort  to  describe  the 
situation  faithfully  and  conservatively.  To  keen  observa- 
tion, and  a  clear,  vivid,  descriptive  style,  he  added  a 
shrewd  common-sense,  which  enabled  him  to  divine,  with 
striking  accuracy,  several  important  economic  facts 
which  the  residents  themselves  overlooked  or  ignored. 
He  went  thoroughly  over  and  into  the  country,  accepting 
no  facts  at  second-hand  which  it  was  possible  for  him  to 
verify  by  personal  investigation. 

Nevertheless,  he  wrote  as  a  tourist-correspondent,  and 
is  first  among  those  of  that  class  who  have  given  Cali- 
fornia the  place  it  holds   in   the  popular  imagination. 

123 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

Looking  back  now  to  his  studies  and  the  deductions  he 
drew  from  them,  it  is  interesting  to  note  how  conditions 
have  changed  in  thirty  years,  and  to  what  extent  his 
words  of  advice  require  revision  before  they  can  be 
offered  to  the  settler  of  to-day. 

When  Mr.  Nordhoff  wrote  his  books  cattle  and  cattle- 
men were  just  beginning  sullenly  to  recede  before  the 
rising  tide  of  agriculturists  in  the  great  San  Joaquin 
Valley.  He  correctly  foretold  the  first  effects  of  the  in- 
dustrial revolution  that  would  follow,  predicting  that  the 
railroad  and  the  public  lands,  and,  later,  the  old  Spanish 
grants,  would  be  divided  among  farmers ;  that  the  cattle 
would  be  compelled  to  seek  the  mountains  for  free  range, 
and  would  come  into  the  valleys  only  to  be  fattened  upon 
alfalfa  and  other  crops.  But  he  foresaw  only  the  first 
effects  of  these  changes,  and  the  farmer  who  should  pro- 
ceed upon  his  advice  to-day  would  certainly  fail  to  prosper. 

Mr.  Nordhoff  championed  the  cause  of  the  small  far- 
mer against  the  great  landowner,  but  his  idea  of  a  small 
farmer  is  widely  different  from  the  present  significance  of 
the  term.  He  saw  in  the  San  Joaquin  ''  cheap  farms  for 
millions."  These  were  to  be  acquired,  either  from  the 
railroad  or  the  government,  in  tracts  ranging  from  one 
hundred  and  sixty  to  six  hundred  and  forty  acres.  This 
was  what  he  meant  by  "small  farms,"  and  they  were 
small,  indeed,  compared  with  the  great  ranches  of  thou- 
sands or  tens  of  thousands  of  acres.  But  they  were 
still  of  quite  imperial  dimensions  compared  with  the 
unit  of  ten,  twenty,  or  thirty  acres  which  is  now  consid- 
ered amply  sufficient  for  the  settler's  needs. 

While  Mr.  Nordhoff  recognized  the  advantage  of  irri- 
gation, he  did  not  appreciate  its  actual  importance,  nor 

134 


EMPIRE    STATE    OF   THE    PACIFIC 

did  he  realize  how  largely  it  would  increase  the  cost  of 
land  and  how  seriously  it  would  influence  the  entire 
economic  character  of  the  country.  He  held  out  the 
hope  of  a  prosperous  living  for  families  of  small  means 
who  should  settle  upon  farms  of  one  hundred  and  sixty 
acres  and  upwards  in  the  San  Joaquin  Valley,  and  de- 
pend chiefly  upon  crops  that  could  be  grown  without 
irrigation.  If  "the  millions"  had  accepted  this  advice 
in  the  past,  or  should  do  so  to-day,  nothing  but  disaster 
could  result.  Except  in  a  few  localities,  prosperous 
agriculture  in  the  San  Joaquin  Valley  without  irriga- 
tion is  impossible.  The  character  of  the  country  is  such 
that  large  and  costly  canal  systems  are  required  to  bring 
any  considerable  portion  of  it  under  water.  When  these 
were  built  it  was  no  longer  possible  to  acquire  cheap 
land,  and  the  size  of  the  practicable  farm  unit  had  been 
reduced  to  about  one-tenth  of  the  amount  Mr.  Nord- 
hoff  advised.  These  developments  changed  the  situa- 
tion completely. 

The  enthusiastic  author  was  by  no  means  blind  to  the 
possibilities  of  horticulture,  nor  did  he  fail  to  foresee 
that  when  this  had  been  established  it  could  be  success- 
fully pursued  on  much  smaller  areas.  But  here  also  his 
advice  is  now  quite  obsolete,  and  must  be  revised  before 
it  can  again  be  offered  to  the  public.  He  left  the  im- 
pression that  oranges  could  be  grown  throughout  south- 
ern California  and  the  San  Joaquin  Valley.  Later  ex- 
perience has  eliminated  the  dream  of  orange  orchards 
from  a  vast  portion  of  these  localities,  but  has  demon- 
strated that  the  industry  is  practicable  in  some  places 
where  it  was  formerly  supposed  to  be  out  of  the  ques- 
tion.    While  the  orange -tree  will  grow  and  generally 

125 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

bear  fruit  throughout  the  lower  valleys,  the  area  in 
which  it  can  successfully  be  cultivated  for  commercial 
purposes  is  rather  severely  restricted.  To  grow  a  few 
orange-trees  within  the  shelter  of  the  house,  and  to  pro- 
duce sufficient  fruit  for  home  purposes,  is  one  thing  ; 
to  grow  thousands  of  acres  of  oranges  fit  for  the  market, 
and  thus  develop  a  genuine  citrus  district,  is  entirely 
different.  There  is  a  well-recognized  thermal  belt  in 
the  foothills  of  the  Sierras,  bordering  the  San  Joaquin 
and  Sacramento  valleys,  but  the  conditions  of  the  coun- 
try as  a  whole,  with  reference  to  this  subject,  have 
turned  out  to  be  very  different  from  what  they  were 
supposed  to  be  when  Mr.  Nordhoff  wrote  his  books.  In 
southern  California  his  predictions  in  regard  to  orange 
culture  have  been  largely  realized,  but  even  there  it  has 
been  discovered  that  the  field  is  limited. 

The  author  was  not  unnaturally  led  into  the  error 
of  saying  that  ''  the  seasons  are  a  little  later  in  the 
North"  than  in  the  South.  The  contrary  is  the  case, 
strange  as  it  may  seem,  for  it  is  the  northern  fruit  dis- 
tricts which  send  the  earliest  products  to  market.  This 
is  true  of  both  deciduous  and  citrus  fruits.  In  the  case 
of  the  latter  the  difference  is  very  striking,  as  the 
northern  oranges  are  ready  for  the  Thanksgiving  mar- 
ket, while  comparatively  little  of  the  southern  crop  is 
available  for  Christmas  purposes.  Both  the  raisin  and 
the  prune  industries  were  beginning  to  assume  import- 
ance in  1873.  Mr.  Nordhoff  quoted  raisins  at  "  two  dol- 
lars per  box  of  twenty-five  pounds,"  and  added  :  *'  I  judge 
from  the  testimony  of  different  persons  that  at  seven 
cents  per  pound  raisins  will  pay  the  farmer  very  well." 
To-day  they  are  quite  content  to  obtain  three  cents.     He 

126 


EMPIRE    STATE    OF   THE    PACIFIC 

quoted  prunes  as  bringing  from  twenty  to  twenty-two 
cents  at  wholesale  at  San  Francisco,  "and  even  as  high  as 
thirty  cents  for  best  quality."  Prunes  now  bring  from 
three  to  eight  cents,  and  pay  well  at  four  and  a  half. 
Figs  were  then  selling  at  from  five  to  ten  cents  per  pound, 
and  the  author  thought  they  would  be  very  profitable. 
The  result  has  proved  that  while  figs  bear  most  prolific 
crops  they  are  not  profitable,  as  Californians  have  not 
yet  been  able  to  cure  and  pack  them  successfully.  There 
are  exceptions  to  the  rule,  but  this  is  true  as  a  general 
statement,  and  the  fig  is  not  a  profitable  article  of  com- 
merce in  California.  In  much  the  same  way  tobacco- 
culture  failed  and  disappointed  the  hopes  which  had 
been  built  upon  that  industry. 

These  are  instances  of  many  particulars  in  which  even 
the  most  painstaking  of  works  on  California  require  re- 
vision in  the  light  of  experience.  So,  too,  the  public 
opinion  which  they  helped  to  make  must  be  revised. 
Mr.  Nordhoff  described  California  as  it  looked  and  as 
it  seemed  to  promise  in  1873.  While  his  methods  were 
conscientious,  his  tone  was  one  of  intense  enthusiasm. 
His  vision  extended  as  far  as  any  one's  could  do  at  that 
time.  The  fact  is  that  at  that  stage  of  its  history  Cali- 
fornia had  not  begun  to  develop  its  real  and  enduring 
economic  traits  as  it  has  done  during  the  past  few  years. 
It  had  recently  emerged  from  an  era  of  wild  speculation. 
It  stood  upon  the  verge  of  another,  in  which  railroads 
and  agriculture,  rather  than  gold,  were  to  be  the  prin- 
cipal factors.  It  is  from  the  calm  sea-level  of  these  quiet 
days  that  the  State  may  best  take  its  bearings.  Thus  the 
time  is  ripe  for  a  new  study  of  what  in  many  respects  is 
the  most  wonderful  of  American  States. 

127 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

The  great  farmer  of  California  is  the  successor  of  the 
gold-hunter.  Both  were  speculators  of  the  thoroughbred 
type ;  both  looked  with  contempt  upon  the  matter  of 
making  a  living,  and  dreamed  only  of  making  a  fortune. 
Of  homes  and  institutions  they  were  neither  architects 
nor  builders,  for  they  sought  only  to  take  the  wealth 
from  the  soil  and  spend  it  elsewhere.  The  miner  leaves 
nothing  to  commemorate  the  place  where  he  gathered 
gold  save  crumbling  hovels  and  empty  tin  cans.  The 
five -thousand -acre  wheat -farmer  leaves  no  monument 
beyond  fields  of  repulsive  stubble  and  the  shanties  of 
his  ''hoboes."  These  social  forces  belong  to  barbarism 
rather  than  to  civilization. 

Mr.  Nordhoff  clearly  perceived  these  things,  and  not 
only  urged  the  importance  of  smaller  farms,  but  that 
farmers  should  be  encouraged  to  diversify  their  products 
and  become  independent  on  their  own  places.  But  the 
conditions  were  yet  too  favorable  for  speculation.  Wheat 
commanded  more  than  one  dollar  per  bushel.  Of  the 
new  products,  such  as  raisins,  prunes,  and  oranges,  the 
output  was  slight,  and  the  prices  consequently  high. 
The  result  was  inevitable.  The  owners  of  large  farms 
sought  to  buy  more  land  and  increase  the  scale  of  their 
operations.  The  new  settlers  acquired  as  much  land  as 
they  could,  while  the  growing  class  of  horticulturists  plant- 
ed their  property  exclusively  to  the  few  kinds  of  trees  or 
vines  which  seemed  most  profitable  at  that  time.  Writing 
of  this  subject  Mr.  T.  S.  Van  Dyke  says  :  "The  general 
principle  upon  which  all  farming  was  done,  from  the  high- 
est to  the  lowest,  was  very  nearly  this  :  Do  nothing  your- 
self that  you  can  hire  any  one  else  to  do,  make  no  machin- 
ery at  home,  and  raise  nothing  to  eat  that  you  can  buy." 

128 


EMPIRE    STATE    OF   THE    PACIFIC 

The  rise  of  horticultare  brought  no  material  change 
in  these  conditions.  As  with  the  miner  and  wheat- 
farmer,  so  with  the  fruit-grower  the  aim  was  to  get  rich 
quickly,  and  the  method  speculation.  Certain  districts 
were  devoted  exclusively  to  prunes,  others  to  wine  grapes, 
others  to  raisins,  and  yet  others  to  oranges.  Fruit-land 
rose  to  almost  fabulous  prices,  and  was  readily  bought 
by  those  who  had  been  taught  to  believe  that  they  could 
realize  profits  ranging  from  one  hundred  to  one  thousand 
dollars  per  acre  for  certain  crops.  Exceptional  instances 
justified  this  prediction,  and  everybody  seemed  to  prefer 
to  found  expectations  upon  these  instances  rather  than 
upon  average  returns.  It  is  not  difficult  to  understand 
why  a  man  who  counts  upon  an  income  of  five  to  ten 
thousand  dollars  from  ten  acres,  or  doable  that  amount 
from  twenty  acres,  should  turn  his  back  upon  common 
things,  and  devote  his  land  exclusively  to  the  crops 
which  promise  such  gilded  profits. 

This  was  the  general  policy,  and  it  conferred  great 
prosperity  upon  some  classes,  particularly  the  Chinese 
and  Italian  market-gardeners,  who  raised  food  for  the 
gentlemen-farmers  to  eat.  There  were  years,  however, 
when  the  fruit  of  trees  and  vines  brought  very  large  re- 
turns. Wherever  the  policy  of  single  crops  is  pursued, 
whether  it  be  wheat,  corn,  or  cotton,  raisins,  prunes,  or 
oranges,  there  are  occasional  years  of  well-nigh  riotous 
prosperity.  But  such  years  are  frequently  more  disas- 
trous in  their  results  than  sober  periods  of  depression. 
They  feed  the  flame  of  speculation  and  raise  false  indus- 
trial ideals.  Under  the  spell  of  such  times,  the  people 
depart  still  further  from  the  safe  path  of  self-sufficient 
agriculture,  buying  more  land  to  devote  to  the  favorite 
I  129 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

crop,  expanding  their  living  expenses,  and  running  into 
debt.  When  this  spirit  becomes  the  breath  of  industry 
no  human  laws  can  avert  disaster. 

A  true  industrial  system  is  like  a  noble  river  fed  by 
eternal  snows:  it  never  floods  its  banks  with  an  exces- 
sive flow,  and  never  sinks  below  its  normal  stage.  It 
ebbs  and  flows  with  the  regular  tides  of  the  great  com- 
mercial ocean  to  which  it  is  tributary,  but  alike  at  high 
water  and  at  low,  it  bears  the  ships  of  men  upon  its  tran- 
quil bosom. 

After  a  very  intimate  acquaintance  with  California 
horticulture,  and  with  the  army  of  producers  who  have 
engaged  in  it,  Mr.  Edward  F.  Adams,  formerly  mana- 
ger of  the  State  Fruit  Exchange,  wrote  as  follows  : 

"  Unless  certain  reforms  in  the  trade  can  be  effected, 
there  is  danger  that  a  large  portion  of  the  capital  will  be 
lost.  The  mortgage  indebtedness  is  very  serious  ;  the 
general  depression  in  values  has  temporarily  wiped  out 
the  equities  of  the  nominal  owners ;  and  while  a  partial 
recovery  is  doubtless  to  be  expected  in  due  time,  it  is 
not  believed  by  the  best  informed  that  under  present 
conditions  of  marketing,  our  orchards  and  vineyards 
can  continue  to  maintain  those  who  occupy  them  in  their 
present  standard  of  comfort.  We  are  endeavoring  by  a 
general  popular  movement  to  remove  the  evils  which  op- 
press us." 

Notwithstanding  such  warnings  as  this,  and  the  sore 
experience  on  which  they  are  based,  there  are  real-estate 
interests  which  still  advertise  the  fabulous  profits  of 
California  fruit-culture,  and  there  are  many  who  believe 
them  and  proceed  to  organize  their  farms  in  the  old 

way. 

180 


EMPIRE    STATE    OF   THE    PACIFIC 

The  evolutionary  process  of  the  last  twenty  years  has 
wrought  out  some  very  valuable  lessons  for  the  future  of 
California.  It  has  demonstrated  that  irrigation  is  es- 
sential to  the  highest  standard  of  civilization.  The  cen- 
sus of  1900  revealed  the  fact  that  nearly  one-half  the 
gain  in  rural  population  stood  to  the  credit  of  eleven  coun- 
ties where  irrigation  prevailed.  The  counties  which  rely 
upon  rainfall  had  about  reached  a  stand-still  or  scored 
a  loss.  The  people  have  always  been  divided  on  the  ques- 
tion as  to  whether  irrigation  is  necessary.  Those  who 
oppose  urge  that  it  breeds  malaria  and  injures  the  qual- 
ity of  the  fruit.  Those  who  favor  insist  that  it  is  essen- 
tial to  the  most  scientific  agriculture,  and  to  the  main- 
tenance of  dense  population.  The  last  twenty  years 
have  answered  the  question  forever.  The  answer  con- 
sists of  a  comparison  between  the  south  and  the  north. 
The  one  was  bom  of  the  irrigation  canal;  the  other  of 
the  mining-camp  and  the  wheat-ranch.  The  one  is  char- 
acterized by  a  high  civilization;  the  other  by  a  low  one. 

With  a  population,  according  to  the  census  of  1900, 
of  less  than  a  million  and  a  half,  California  has  a 
territory  nearly  as  large  as  that  of  France.  It  is  in- 
ferior to  France  neither  in  climate,  soil,  natural  re- 
sources, nor  sea-coast,  and  its  capacity  for  sustaining  a 
dense  population  is  fully  as  great  as  that  of  the  Eu- 
ropean republic.  The  latter  supporiis  more  than  thirty- 
eight  millions.  If,  then,  the  comparatively  few  inhabi- 
tants of  the  California  of  to-day  are  not  equally  pros- 
perous, it  is  because  they  have  failed  to  make  the  best 
use  of  their  opportunities.  With  the  same  rate  of  in- 
crease in  the  next  century  as  in  that  of  the  immediate 
past,  the  United  States  will  contain  in  the  year  2000 

131 


THE   CONQUEST   OF   ARID   AMERICA 

a  population  of  over  one  thousand  millions.  Noth- 
ing is  more  certain  than  that  California  must  receive  its 
full  share  of  these  future  millions.  It  seems  hardly  less 
certain  that  they  will  realize  there  the  highest  destiny 
of  the  race.     But  how? 

Notwithstanding  the  supreme  attractions  of  its  rural 
life,  more  than  seventy-three  per  cent,  of  California's 
total  increase  in  the  last  decade  covered  by  the  national 
census  settled  in  towns  and  cities.  As  a  result,  the  ur- 
ban life  of  this  far,  new  State  is  as  badly  congested  as 
that  of  the  old  communities  of  the  East.  But  the  pos- 
sibilities of  agriculture,  of  manufacture,  and  of  mining 
are  relatively  untouched.  Ultimate  California  remains 
to  be  fashioned  from  these  undeveloped  materials.  The 
tendencies  of  future  growth  are  revealed  by  the  teaching 
of  the  past,  and  not  less  by  its  failures  than  by  its  suc- 
cesses— not  less  by  the  fury  of  old  speculations  than  by 
the  calm  current  of  these  saner  times. 

The  future  tides  of  population  in  the  Golden  State 
must  first  spend  their  energy  upon  the  soil.  It  is  the 
creation  of  a  new  and  ampler  civilization  that  is  involved, 
and  agriculture  must  be  its  foundation.  But  if  those 
now  engaged  in  cultivating  the  soil  can  scarcely  main- 
tain themselves,  what  hope  is  there  for  new  recruits  in 
the  industry?  The  question  is  natural,  but  the  answer 
is  conclusive.  There  is  no  hope  for  them  if  they  engage 
in  speculation,  but  there  is  an  absolute  guaranty  of  a 
living  and  a  competence,  to  be  enjoyed  under  the  most 
satisfying  and  ennobling  social  conditions,  if  they  work 
upon  sound  industrial  lines.  These  lines  are  clearly  dis- 
closed by  the  light  of  past  experience. 

Three  classes  of  products  should  enter  into  the  cal- 
132 


EMPIRE    STATE    OF   THE    PACIFIC 

culations  of  the  new  settler  in  California :  the  things  he 
consumes  ;  the  things  California  now  imports  from  east- 
ern States  and  foreign  countries  ;  the  things  which  east- 
ern communities  consume,  but  can  never  hope  to  pro- 
duce, and  of  which  California  possesses  virtually  a 
monopoly.  In  the  first  list  is  almost  everything  which 
would  appear  in  an  elaborate  dinner  menu,  from  the 
course  of  olives  to  the  course  of  oranges,  nuts,  and 
raisins,  and  excluding  only  the  coffee.  This  policy  of 
self-sustenance  has  been  ignored  to  a  startling  degree  in 
the  mad  struggle  for  riches,  but  the  coming  millions  of 
farmers  can  be  sure  of  a  luxurious  living  only  by  stoop- 
ing to  collect  it  from  the  soil. 

In  the  second  list  are  many  of  the  commonest  articles 
of  consumption,  which  California  might  readily  produce 
at  home,  but  for  which  it  sends  millions  of  dollars 
abroad  each  year.  The  imports  of  pork  and  its  products 
range  as  high  as  eight  or  ten  millions  each  year.  Con- 
densed milk  is  not  only  a  very  important  article  of  con- 
sumption in  mining  -  camps  and  great  ranches,  but  is 
largely  shipped  abroad  for  the  Asiatic  trade.  It  is 
brought  across  the  continent  from  New  Jersey.  Cali- 
fornia also  sends  beyond  its  borders  from  twenty  to 
twenty-five  millions  annually  for  the  item  of  sugar,  which 
should  not  only  be  produced  in  sufficient  quantities  to 
supply  consumption,  but  for  export  as  well.  It  is  a 
curious  fact  that  many  of  the  finest  fruit  preserves  sold 
in  San  Francisco  bear  French  and  Italian  labels,  and 
that  the  supply  of  canned  sweet  corn  comes  mostly  from 
Maine.  Essential  oils  made  from  the  peelings  of  citrus 
fruits  are  also  imported.  It  is  not  uncommon  to  find 
orange  marmalade  which  has  been  prepared  in  Rochester, 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

New  York,  the  oranges  having  been  shipped  eastward, 
and  the  manufactured  product  westward,  at  the  cost  of 
two  transcontinental  freights.  Imports  are  by  no  means 
confined  to  things  which  require  capital  and  machinery 
for  their  manufacture.  Chickens,  turkeys,  and  eggs  are 
largely  brought  from  outside.  A  single  commission- 
house  in  San  Francisco  imports  five  hundred  thousand 
chickens  every  year.  It  is  true  that  during  the  last  few 
years  notable  progress  has  been  made  in  sugar  manufact- 
ure and  in  some  other  lines  of  production  formerly  alto- 
gether neglected,  yet  many  thousands  of  new  settlers  can 
be  profitably  employed  in  feeding  the  growing  home  popu- 
lation. 

Having  made  perfectly  sure  of  his  living,  and  disposed 
of  his  surplus  for  cash  in  the  home  market,  the  settler 
still  has  left  a  promising  field  in  the  list  of  things  which 
nine-tenths  of  the  American  people  consume  but  cannot 
produce.  Among  these  products  are  oranges,  lemons, 
and  limes.  Florida  competition  in  this  line  has  been 
temporarily  destroyed,  if  not  permanently  injured.  Mex- 
ico is,  perhaps,  a  rising  competitor  ;  but  there  is  little 
reason  to  fear  that  California  cannot  hold  its  own  against 
all  foreign  producers.  Even  more  promising  is  the  olive- 
culture  ;  for  while  the  orange  is  an  article  of  luxury,  the 
olive  must  ultimately  become  here  as  elsewhere  an  im- 
portant article  of  food.  Calif ornians  are  just  beginning 
to  pickle  the  ripe  olives.  The  difference  between  a  green 
olive  and  a  ripe  one  is  precisely  the  difference  between  a 
green  and  a  ripe  apple.  In  Spain  the  people  subsist 
largely  on  olives — but  not  on  green  ones.  All  who  have 
eaten  the  ripe  fruit  which  is  now  being  pickled  in  Cal- 
ifornia will  agree  that  it  is  conservative  to  say  that 
when  the  American  public  become  acquainted  with  this 

134 


EMPIRE    STATE    OF    THE    PACIFIC 

product,  its  consumption  will  be  enormously  increased. 
This  will  be  true,  because  in  its  new  form  the  olive  is  as 
nutritious  as  it  is  palatable,  and  the  people  will  learn  to 
depend  upon  it  as  an  article  of  diet.  In  the  production 
of  deciduous  fruits,  such  as  peaches,  apricots,  cherries, 
and  nectarines,  California  has  much  competition,  and  is 
to  have  much  more  in  the  future.  There  are  irrigated 
valleys  throughout  the  Pacific  Northwest,  the  inter- 
mountain  region,  and  the  now  undeveloped  Southwest, 
which  are  beginning  to  produce  marvellous  fruits  of  this 
kind.  The  same  is  true  of  olives,  almonds,  and  walnuts 
in  a  much  more  restricted  way.  The  California  wine  in- 
dustry is  promising  to-day,  and  the  culture  of  grapes  for 
this  purpose  profitable.  Planters  who  depend  for  their 
entire  income  upon  the  cultivation  of  these  export  crops 
will  necessarily  suffer  all  the  evils  of  speculative  farm- 
ing, but  those  who  have  founded  their  industry  upon  the 
plan  of  self-suflBciency  will  always  have  a  surplus  income 
from  this  third  source,  and  in  years  of  high  prices  it  will 
be  large.  It  is  thus  that  the  agricultural  basis  of  Cali- 
fornia will  be  indefinitely  broadened  in  order  to  sustain 
future  millions. 

Upon  this  foundation  manufactures,  mining,  and  an 
enlarged  commerce  will  rest.  The  first  cannot  be  long 
delayed.  California  will  not  permanently  endure  the 
enormous  waste  involved  in  shipping  its  wool  and  hides 
across  the  continent  to  Eastern  mills,  tanneries,  and 
workshops,  and  in  shipping  back  again  the  manufactured 
cloth  and  shoes.  The  factories  must  inevitably  grow  up 
near  the  raw  material  and  the  consumers.  Expediency 
and  the  economy  of  nature  alike  demand  it.  This  im- 
portant part  of  California's  civilization  remains  almost 

135 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

wholly  to  be  developed.  Its  growth  will  open  new  av- 
enues for  employment  and  new  outlets  for  the  products 
of  the  soil. 

The  mining  industry  is  also  in  its  youth.  To  use  a 
common  phrase,  but  a  true  one,  "the  surface  of  the 
ground  has  only  been  scratched."  Old  methods  have 
been  outlived,  and  the  conditions  of  the  industry  are 
changing  in  vital  ways  ;  but  the  work  of  taking  gold  and 
silver,  copper,  lead,  and  iron  from  the  foot-hills  and 
mountains  of  California  has  only  been  begun.  The  day 
of  the  individual  miner,  working  with  his  pan  in  the 
gravel  bed  of  the  stream,  is  mostly  passed.  The  conditions 
of  hydraulic  mining  were  materially  altered  by  legisla- 
tion because  of  the  injury  done  by  polluting  the  rivers 
and  filling  their  channels  ;  but  quartz-mining  is  in  a 
state  of  rapid  development,  and  is  destined  to  assume 
prodigious  proportions.  It  will  add  untold  millions  to 
the  wealth  of  the  community,  increasing  the  demand  for 
labor  and  widening  the  markets  of  the  farmer. 

Nature  has  unquestionably  provided  the  foundation  of 
a  marvellous  industrial  life  in  which  millions  of  people 
will  finally  participate.  To-day  these  resources  are  un- 
developed. There  is  but  one  force  that  can  awaken  the 
sleeping  potentialities  into  a  manifold  and  fruitful  life. 
That  force  is  human  labor.  Looking  down  the  years  of 
the  future,  it  is  possible  to  predict,  with  the  accuracy  of 
mathematics,  that  human  labor  will  coin  from  these  va- 
cant valleys  and  rugged  mountain-sides  billions  upon 
billions  of  money.  The  wealth  to  be  so  created  will 
build  many  beautiful  homes,  capitalize  banks,  factories, 
and  railroads,  and  send  great  steamships  across  the  Pa- 
cific to  foreign  shores.     To  whom  shall  these  things  be- 

136 


EMPIRE    STATE    OF    THE    PACIFIC 

long  when  labor  has  made  them  from  the  materials 
which  nature  provided  ?  Upon  the  answer  to  that  ques- 
tion hang  the  destinies  of  California. 

The  seed  of  the  California  of  the  past  was  in  the  little 
group  of  feverish  gold-hunters  who  camped  by  Sutter's 
mill  in  1849.  It  bore  the  gaudy  weed  of  speculation, 
with  its  bitter  harvest  of  misfortune  and  discontent  for 
the  many,  accentuated  only  by  the  superfluous  riches 
which  it  gave  to  the  few.  The  seed  of  the  California  of 
the  future  is  in  the  irrigation  canals  owned  and  admin- 
istered by  small  landed  proprietors ;  in  the  fruit  ex- 
changes, which  are  supplanting  the  commission  system 
and  securing  to  the  producer  the  rewards  of  his  labor ; 
in  the  co  -  operative  creameries  and  canning  factories 
which,  in  the  face  of  deficient  capital  and  unfair  compe- 
tition, are  slowly  fighting  their  way  to  the  sure  ground 
of  abiding  prosperity ;  in  the  multitudinous  and  uni- 
formly successful  manufacturing  and  mercantile  associ- 
ations which  Mormon  genius  has  planted  in  the  valleys 
of  Utah ;  in  the  banks,  insurance  companies,  and  loan 
and  building  societies  which,  all  over  the  Union  and  all 
over  the  world,  have  vindicated  the  possibilities  of  asso- 
ciated man. 

It  is  interesting  to  consider  what  portions  of  California 
will  receive  the  bulk  of  the  future  population.  The 
topography  of  the  State  is  peculiar  and  readily  compre- 
hended. The  coast  region  presents  a  frontage  of  over 
one  thousand  miles  to  the  sea,  and  is  narrowly  hemmed 
in  by  mountain  ranges  which,  in  many  places,  come  down 
to  the  shore  itself.  But  in  these  mountains  there  are 
many  picturesque  and  fertile  valleys  which  have  long 
been  applied  to  agricultural  purposes.     The  coast  region 

137 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

has  a  climate  of  its  own.  It  is  the  mildest  type  of  the 
temperate  zone,  closely  verging  upon  the  semi-tropical, 
but  not  adapted  to  the  growth  of  citrus  fruits.  Here 
the  rainfall  is  heavier  than  elsewhere  in  California,  and 
proximity  to  the  sea  gives  rise  to  frequent  fogs.  In  the 
southern  extremity  of  this  region,  from  Santa  Barbara 
to  San  Diego,  the  climate  becomes  genuinely  semi- 
tropical  and  fogs  are  less  common.  North  of  San  Fran- 
cisco the  leading  industries  are  lumbering,  dairying, 
stock-raising,  and  general  farming,  with  some  mining. 
In  a  few  favored  valleys  fruit-raising  on  small  farms  is 
successfully  followed.  South  of  San  Franciso  the  lum- 
ber and  mining  interests  are  insignificant,  and  the  coun- 
try is  mostly  devoted  to  dairy,  stock,  and  general  farming. 
A  most  notable  exception  to  what  has  been  said  of  the 
general  condition  of  the  coast  region  is  the  Santa  Clara 
Valley,  which  contributes  enormously  to  the  exports  of 
the  State.  In  the  beauty  of  its  homes  and  orchards  and 
the  excellence  of  its  horticultural  methods,  in  the  organ- 
ization of  its  fruit  exchanges,  and  the  character  of  its 
urban  life  and  civic  institutions,  the  Santa  Clara  Valley 
is  fully  equal  to  the  most  ideal  localities  in  California, 
not  even  excepting  the  famous  orange  districts  near  Los 
Angeles.  There  are  numerous  opportunities  in  counties 
farther  south,  notably  in  Monterey,  San  Luis  Obispo, 
and  Santa  Barbara,  to  apply  the  same  methods  with 
similar  results.  But  while  the  Santa  Clara  Valley  rep- 
resents the  finest  possibilities  of  the  coast  region,  it 
also  strikingly  illustrates  certain  failings  in  the  econom- 
ic system  of  the  State  which  have  been  dwelt  upon  in 
earlier  pages.  Land  is  almost  exclusively  devoted  to 
fruit.     Farmers   buy   their  milk,  butter,  eggs,  poultry, 

138 


EMPIKE    STATE    OF   THE    PACIFIC 

bacon,  and  fresh  meats  of  others.  They  themselves  pro- 
duce none  of  the  real  necessaries  of  life,  but  only  the 
luxuries.  One  reason  for  this  is  the  lack  of  irrigation. 
They  have  taught  themselves  to  believe  that  this  is  not 
only  unnecessary,  but  would  actually  be  injurious  to  the 
quality  of  their  fruit.  They  are  learning  gradually, 
however,  that  this  idea  is  erroneous  —  that  skilful  and 
proper  irrigation  is  always  beneficial,  and  that  artificial 
moisture  is  imperatively  necessary  to  diversified  produc- 
tion; hence,  to  the  highest  business  prosperity  and  best 
social  conditions.  When  this  lesson  is  learned  by  the 
coast  region  as  a  whole  a  new  era  will  set  in,  and  great 
numbers  of  colonists  will  come. 

What  is  popularly  known  as  southern  California  is  a 
narrowly  restricted  district  reaching  eastward  from  Los 
Angeles  for  about  one  hundred  miles  and  southward  to 
San  Diego.  Like  the  coast  region,  its  character  is  fixed, 
though  on  widely  different  lines.  Its  population  is  al- 
ready comparatively  dense,  and  its  future  growth  will  be 
measured  by  the  water  supply  for  irrigation.  While  it 
would  seem  as  if  the  water  resources  had  been  fully 
utilized,  the  fact  is  that  large  quantities  run  to  waste  in 
seasons  of  flood,  and  that  the  cultivable  area  can  be 
gradually  extended  by  storage  works  and  more  economi- 
cal methods  of  irrigation. 

It  is  an  impressive  fact  that  the  seven  counties  of  the 
south  received  ninety  per  cent,  of  the  increase  of  rural 
population  between  1890  and  1900.  This  marvel- 
lous showing  was  chiefly  due  to  the  superior  public  spirit 
of  the  locality,  and  to  the  attractive  institutions  which 
grew  out  of  it.  Los  Angeles  itself  is  the  throbbing 
heart  of  a  region  which,  in  many  respects,  has  no  equal 

139 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  AKID  AMERICA 

in  the  world.  The  leading  characteristics  of  this  local- 
ity have  been  referred  to  in  another  chapter.  But  the 
very  success  which  attended  these  methods  in  the  past 
places  limitations  upon  the  country  as  a  field  for  future 
expansion.  Land  values  have  risen  high  and  the  water 
supply  has  become  almost  as  precious  as  gold.  Health- 
seekers  and  the  leisure  class  have  been  attracted  in  large 
numbers  and  occupy  the  field  which  would  otherwise  be 
open  to  home-makers  of  smaller  means.  A  class  of 
weathy  people  is  a  prominent  feature  of  immigration  in 
the  southern  valley.  These  opulent  settlers  plant  or- 
chards of  oranges^  lemons,  and  olives,  just  as  their  poorer 
neighbors  do.  It  is  reassuring  to  reflect,  however,  that 
they  can  accomplish  little  more  with  their  abundant  capi- 
tal than  humbler  settlers  may  do  with  their  united  labor. 
The  sun,  the  sky,  the  earth,  and  the  waters  will  be  as 
kind  to  one  class  as  to  the  other.  While  it  should  not  b^ 
inferred  that  none  but  the  very  rich  can  settle  in  the 
south,  it  is  perfectly  true  that  this  charming  district  is 
not  within  the  field  of  the  largest  future  developments. 
Where,  then,  is  the  field  to  accommodate  the  hosts  who 
will  come  when  the  population  of  California  begins  to 
approximate  that  of  France?  It  lies  principally  in  four 
great  and  distinct  bodies,  which  may  be  named,  in  the 
order  of  their  importance,  as  follows:  the  Sacramento 
Valley,  stretching  north  from  the  bay  of  San  Francisco 
to  the  feet  of  snowy  Shasta;  the  San  Joaquin  Valley, 
reaching  south  from  the  great  bay  to  the  place  where  the 
two  mountain-ranges  meet  at  the  pass  of  Tehachapi; 
the  intermountaiA  valleys  on  the  eastern  slope  of  the 
Sierra,  extending  over  the  boundary  into  Nevada;  and 

140 


i 


EMPIRE    STATE    OF   THE    PACIFIC 

the  Colorado  Desert,  in  the  extreme  southeastern  part 
of  the  state,  on  the  borders  of  Mexico. 

The  first  of  these,  the  Valley  of  the  Sacramento,  pre- 
sents one  of  the  most  remarkable  opportunities  for  col- 
onization to  be  found  in  the  world.  Although  it  repre- 
sents rather  less  than  one-half  of  the  great  interior  val- 
ley of  California,  its  length  is  equal  to  the  distance  from 
New  York  to  Richmond,  Virginia.  Unlike  other  parts  of 
the  State,  it  is  magnificently  favored  in  its  water  supply. 
Government  experts  declare  that  ten  million  acres  could 
be  irrigated,  and  it  is  probably  within  bounds  to  say  that 
a  total  of  ten  million  people  could  be  sustained,  in  town 
and  country,  when  the  resources  of  the  region  are  brought 
under  full  development.  It  is  rich  in  timber  and  min- 
erals, while  its  climate  favors  the  production  of  every- 
thing for  which  California  is  famous.  Although  hun- 
dreds of  miles  north  of  Los  Angeles,  it  produces  the 
earliest  fruits,  including  oranges.  It  has  navigable 
streams,  capable  of  much  improvement.  The  Sacramento 
River  itself  is  valuable  for  commerce  for  a  distance  of 
nearly  two  hundred  miles  north  of  the  bay  of  San  Fran- 
cisco. 

But  with  all  these  remarkable  advantages,  the  rural 
population  increased  but  a  beggarly  thousand  in  the 
decade  covered  by  the  last  census  (1890-1900).  The 
gain  in  town  population  during  the  same  period  was 
9,240,  making  a  net  gain  of  a  little  over  ten  thousand  for 
the  Sacramento  Valley  as  a  whole. 

What  is  the  explanation  of  this  stagnation  in  rural 
settlement?  The  country  is  held  in  large  estates,  prin- 
cipally devoted  to  the  cultivation  of  grain,  which  is  always 

141 


THE   CONQUEST   OF   ARID  AMERICA 

a  speculative  industry,  with  alternating  periods  of  pros- 
perity and  depression.  Even  horticulture  is  often  con- 
ducted on  a  great  scale  in  this  region.  The  orchards 
and  vineyards  of  the  Stanford  and  Bidwell  estates  are 
striking  examples  of  this  tendency.  The  public  spirit 
which  gave  the  southern  counties  their  splendid  place 
in  the  life  of  the  Pacific  Coast  is  lacking  in  the  north, 
though  strongly  represented  by  an  aggressive  and  per- 
sistent minority  whose  influence  is  apparently  gaining 
ground.  The  truth  is  that  such  public  spirit  is  culti- 
vated only  with  the  greatest  difficulty  in  a  land  of  wheat 
fields  and  mining  camps.  It  comes  with  irrigation,  with 
the  subdivision  of  land  into  thousands  of  small  holdings, 
with  a  citizenship  composed  of  a  multitude  of  small 
proprietors. 

Irrigation  is  by  no  means  absolutely  necessary  in  the 
Sacramento  Valley.  If  it  were,  the  story  of  its  progress 
would  be  different.  No  one  could  then  truthfully  assert, 
as  now,  that  this  splendid  district  sustains  less  popula- 
tion on  the  soil  than  it  did  a  quarter  of  a  century  since. 
While  irrigation  is  not  indispensable,  it  is  essential  to 
the  best  and  highest  results,  especially  in  the  line  of 
small-farming.  The  rainless  season  usually  extends 
from  May  until  November.  Without  artificial  moisture 
there  can  be  no  beautiful  lawns,  successive  crops  of 
vegetables  and  small  fruits,  or  goodly  yields  of  alfalfa. 
Citrus  fruits  cannot  be  profitably  cultivated  without  it, 
and  there  is  no  fruit  that  is  not  improved,  both  in  quality 
and  quantit}^  by  the  proper  application  of  water.  This 
claim  is  often  stoutly  disputed,  particularly  by  those 
wishing  to  sell  land  that  is  unprovided  with  irrigation 

142 


EMPIRE    STATE    OF   THE    PACIFIC 

facilities.  But  experience  has  taught  that  northern 
California  may  only  hope  to  equal  the  southern  part 
of  the  State  by  imitating  its  industrial  methods,  of 
which  irrigation  is  first  and  foremost. 

A  striking  example  of  what  can  be  done  upon  these 
rich  lands  by  means  of  irrigation  and  intensive  cultiva- 
tion is  furnished  by  the  experience  of  Samuel  C.  Cleek, 
who  lived  for  many  years  on  a  single  acre  at  the  little 
town  of  Orland,  in  Glenn  County.  On  this  one  acre  he 
not  only  supported  himself  and  wife  in  generous  comfort, 
but  averaged  a  cash  saving  of  four  hundred  dollars  a 
year.  He  had  money  to  loan  to  his  less  fortunate  neigh- 
bors and  money  to  give  to  any  good  cause.  Moreover, 
he  had  the  advantage  of  living  in  the  midst  of  good 
neighbors  and  close  to  store,  church,  post-office,  and 
school.  Think  of  it !  This  man  out  of  debt,  sure  of  his 
living  year  after  year,  with  property  and  savings  which 
entitled  him  to  be  regarded  as  moderately  rich,  and  all 
from  one  irrigated  acre;  while  neighbors  with  thousands 
of  acres  in  wheat,  and  other  neighbors  with  considerable 
areas  in  fruit,  labored  under  loads  of  debt  bearing  high 
interest,  or  were  sold  out  by  the  sheriff. 

It  is  not  to  be  contended  that  one  acre  of  irrigated 
land  is  enough  for  the  average  family,  nor  that  every 
man  may  expect  to  be  as  successful  a  gardener  or  as 
thrifty  a  manager  as  Mr.  Cleek.  When  we  see  so  remark- 
able a  result  as  this  we  know  that  the  personal  equation 
must  account  for  some  of  it.  Nevertheless,  the  fact  re- 
mains that  small  farms,  under  diversified  and  intensive 
cultivation  by  means  of  irrigation,  would  make  the 
Sacramento  Valley  a  paradise  and  enable  it  to  support 

143 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  AEID  AMERICA 

millions  of  people  in  a  condition  of  rare  independence 
and  prosperity.  Under  such  a  policy  this  district  alone 
would  absorb  enough  surplus  men  to  steady  the  Nation 
in  some  great  crisis  of  the  future.  The  development 
would  demand  not  only  farmers,  but  bankers,  merchants, 
mechanics,  and  men  and  women  of  every  profession. 

The  business  opportunity  presented  by  these  conditions 
has  at  last  attracted  the  attention  of  enterprise  and 
capital,  with  the  result  that  rich  estates  are  being  brought 
under  irrigation,  subdivided,  and  placed  upon  the  mar- 
ket. Prices  range  from  fifty  to  one  hundred  dollars  an 
acre,  so  that  small  farms  can  be  obtained  by  families 
of  moderate  means.  On  such  farms,  industrious  settlers 
would  be  able  to  produce  nearly  all  that  they  consume 
and  have  much  to  sell  for  cash.  They  may  not  realize 
at  the  beginning  the  most  ideal  social  and  economic  con- 
ditions, for  these  wait  upon  the  adoption  of  large  public 
policies,  but  many  a  man  will  be  able  to  improve  his  lot 
by  joining  the  slender  stream  of  settlement  which  is 
beginning  to  flow  upon  the  irrigated  lands  of  the  Sacra- 
mento. 

However,  the  great  economic  problems  of  this  region 
will  not  be  solved  by  private  enterprise,  alone  The 
work  to  be  done  is  so  vast  that  only  the  Government  is 
capable  of  grappling  with  it  successfully.  Important 
steps  have  already  been  taken  toward  this  end.  De- 
tailed surveys  of  the  entire  floor  of  the  Sacramento 
Valley,  together  with  careful  studies  of  forestry  condi- 
tions in  its  drainage  basins,  are  under  way.  Ultimately, 
millions  of  dollars  must  be  expended  in  the  storage  of 
flood  waters,  in  the  building  of  canals  for  irrigation  and 

144 


EMPIEE    STATE    OF   THE    PACIFIC 

drainage,  in  the  development  of  power,  in  the  preserva- 
tion and  extension  of  the  forests.  The  planning  and 
directing  of  this  work  has  fallen  to  the  hands  of  Joseph 
Barlow  Lippincott,  one  of  the  strongest  characters  who 
has  been  brought  to  the  front  by  the  national  irrigation 
policy. 

**  I  believe  the  Sacramento  Valley  offers  the  greatest  unde- 
veloped opportunity  in  Arid  America,  but  I  also  believe  that 
the  problem  involved  in  its  reclamation  is  one  of  the  most  ex- 
tensive and  intricate  that  we  have  to  deal  with  in  Arid  Amer- 
ica," writes  Mr.  Lippincott.  **  I  believe  that  it  can  be  solved 
and  that  it  will  be  solved,  and  I  hope  that  the  Reclamation 
Service  will  be  able  to  lend  material  aid  in  its  solution." 

The  golden  age  of  colonization  in  the  Sacramento 
Valley  will  come  with  the  fruition  of  these  plans. 

The  hope  of  that  better  and  greater  Sacramento  Valley 
which  is  sure  to  unfold  in  the  coming  years  was  embodied 
in  the  life  and  teachings  of  a  great  man  who  passed 
from  sight  in  June,  1905.  This  man  was  William 
Semple  Green,  familiarly  and  affectionately  known  to 
California  for  more  than  half  a  century  as  Will  Green. 
He  came  with  the  Argonauts,  but  he  had  no  eyes  for  the 
gold  which  absorbed  their  attention.  From  boyhood  to 
old  age,  his  one  dream  was  to  see  the  Great  Valley 
watered,  peopled,  cultivated,  and  glorified  by  millions  of 
independent  homes.  To  make  this  dream  come  true  he 
gave  a  lifetime  of  unselfish  devotion.  He  lived  to  re- 
ceive the  assurance  that  all  he  had  hoped  and  worked  for 
would  come  to  pass,  though  not  to  behold  the  reality  with 
mortal  eyes.  He  escorted  the  Congressional  Irrigation 
Conunittees  through  the  valley  in  June,  1905,  and  had 
the  profound  satisfaction  of  listening  to  the  plans  which 
K  145 


THE   CONQUEST  OF  ARID  AMERICA 

the  Government  has  made  for  a  vast  work  of  reclamation, 
and  the  even  keener  satisfaction  of  seeing  these  plans 
enthusiastically  approved  by  that  public  which  had  for 
decades  scorned  the  suggestion  that  irrigation  alone  could 
make  the  land  of  the  Sacramento  come  into  its  own. 
His  last  words  to  the  people  of  the  valley,  spoken  at  Red 
Bluff  at  the  close  of  a  banquet  tendered  to  the  visiting 
Congressmen,  were  these: 

"  For  fifty  years  I  have  waited  for  this  hour  to  come.  I  know 
now  that  I  have  not  labored  in  vain.  If  I  can  but  live  to  go  up 
on  Pisgah,  and  see  this  valley  redeemed,  and  the  home  of  God's 
chosen  people,  I  shall  be  ready  to  lay  me  down  and  die." 

A  few  days  later,  he  passed  on.  But  his  work  was 
done,  and  nobly  done.  His  fame  will  live  and  grow 
with  the  valley  for  which  he  prayed  as  his  life  went 
out. 

The  San  Joaquin  Valley  is  even  larger  than  its  north- 
em  sister,  which  it  resembles  in  nearly  all  fundamental 
respects.  Indeed,  the  conditions  of  soil,  climate,  and 
productions  are  so  nearly  identical  that  they  need  not 
be  rehearsed.  There  is  one  point  of  difference  which  is 
quite  vital,  however,  and  which  has  made  itself  felt  in 
the  history  of  San  Joaquin.  This  is  the  fact  that 
rainfall  is  appreciably  less  and  that,  as  a  consequence, 
irrigation  is  much  more  necessary.  Hence,  the  small 
farm  became  popular  many  years  ago  and  compara- 
tively dense  population  has  grown  up  in  certain  locali- 
ties. The  best  example  is  the  city  and  county  of  Fresno, 
in  the  heart  of  the  valley. 

146 


EMPIRE    STATE    OF   THE    PACIFIC 

Perhaps  the  earliest  triumph  of  the  new  woman  in 
this  generation  was  that  of  Miss  Austin  and  three  other 
San  Francisco  "  schoolma'ams,"  who  founded  the  won- 
derful Fresno  raisin  industry.  Investing  their  savings 
in  a  ranch  and  boldly  venturing  upon  a  culture  in  which 
few  had  faith,  they  demonstrated  that  raisins  equal  to 
those  of  Spain  could  be  produced  in  California.  They 
were  rewarded  with  handsome  profits,  and  thousands 
came  to  share  in  the  benefits  of  their  demonstration. 
All  the  evils  that  attend  speculation  in  a  single  crop 
followed  as  a  natural  consequence,  and  brought  a  period 
of  hard  times.  Unskilful  irrigation  without  adequate 
drainage  also  wrought  harm  in  various  ways.  But 
Fresno  has  largely  outlived  these  misfortunes  and  the 
raisin  industry  gradually  progresses  to  more  stable  con- 
ditions. On  the  whole,  it  played  a  wonderful  part  in 
the  transformation  of  what  was  once  but  a  poor  stock 
range  into  a  region  of  prosperous  vineyards  and  beautiful 
homes. 

The  San  Joaquin  Valley  has  been  much  more  fortun- 
ate than  the  Sacramento  or  any  other  part  of  California, 
in  commanding  private  capital  for  the  development  of 
its  agricultural  resources.  As  a  consequence,  there  are 
many  opportunities  for  the  settler  to  obtain  good  irri- 
gated land  on  reasonable  terms.  J.  B.  Haggin  and 
Lloyd  Tevis  invested  millions  of  dollars  in  turning  the 
waters  of  Kern  River  upon  the  rich  delta  of  that  stream. 
Bakersfield,  which  has  become  famous  in  recent  years  as 
the  capital  of  an  oil  kingdom,  is  also  the  centre  of  the 
large  district  irrigated  by  the  Kem.  This  is  situated 
at  the  southern  end  of  the  valley.     The  rich  Crocker 

147 


THE  CONQUEST  OF  ARID  AMERICA. 

estate  has  done  a  similar  work  on  the  Merced  River,  near 
the  centre  of  the  valley.  In  both  cases  opportunities 
have  been  opened  to  settlers  which  must  otherwise  have 
remained  beyond  their  reach  because  of  the  large  invest- 
ment required  to  bring  land  and  water  together. 

The  San  Joaquin  has  also  been  the  scene  of  successful 
irrigation  of  another  kind.  Under  what  is  known  as 
the  District  Irrigation  Law,  large  areas  have  been  re- 
claimed by  associations  of  landowners  on  the  Tuolumne 
and  Kings  Rivers.  The  most  important  of  these  dis- 
tricts are  the  Turlock  and  the  Modesto,  on  the  former, 
and  the  Alta,  on  the  latter.  Industrious  families  of 
small  means  are  making  homes  successfully  in  these 
localities,  as  well  as  in  many  other  parts  of  the  valley 
which  are  irrigated  by  smaller  works. 

The  orange-growing  district  in  the  foothills  of  Tulare 
County,  under  the  waters  of  the  Tule  River,  are  notably 
successful.  Porterville  is  the  centre  of  this  district  and 
seems  destined  to  become  an  important  city,  as  it  is 
already  a  charming  home-spot.  Land  and  water  are 
cheaper  here  than  in  the  more  famous  orange  districts 
of  the  south,  but  the  profits  of  the  industry  are  no  less 
on  that  account.  The  higher  improvement  of  the 
southern  districts  is  doubtless  due  to  the  fact  that  a 
wealthier  class  of  colonists  was  attracted  there,  rather 
than  to  superior  natural  advantages. 

The  valleys  of  the  Sacramento  and  San  Joaquin  have 
been,  and  are  yet,  the  grain-fields  of  the  Pacific  Coast. 
Many  of  their  residents  have  bemoaned  the  fall  in  the 
price  of  wheat  as  the  greatest  of  calamities.     The  truth 


148 


EMPIRE    STATE    OF   THE    PACIFIC 

is  that  for  California  it  is  the  first  of  blessings.  The 
fall  in  wheat  prices  has  broken  the  land  monopoly  which 
kept  labor  servile  and  gave  the  most  fruitful  of  coun- 
tries to  four-footed  beasts  rather  thau  to  men.  Not  until 
nearly  all  great  ranches  had  been  mortgaged  to  their 
full  capacity,  not  until  the  failure  of  prices  had  made 
the  debts  intolerably  burdensome  and  brought  their 
owners  face  to  face  with  disaster,  was  it  possible  to 
open  the  country  for  its  best  and  highest  uses.  With 
the  supremacy  of  wheat  will  go  the  shanty  and  the 
"hobo''  laborer,  to  be  followed  in  time  by  the  China- 
man. In  their  places  will  come  the  home  and  the  man 
who  works  for  himself.  Civilization  will  bloom  where 
barbarism  has  blighted  the  land.  There  are  localities 
where  the  cultivation  of  grain  can  be  pursued,  but  the 
semi-tropical  valleys  of  California  were  plainly  intended 
for  better  things. 

Irrigation,  drainage,  and  cheap  transportation  are  close- 
ly related  as  economic  problems  in  the  great  interior  val- 
leys. William  Hammond  Hall,  the  former  State  engineer, 
has  predicted  that  within  fifty  years  the  waters  which  rise 
in  the  mountains  and  meander  through  these  valleys  to 
the  sea  will  all  be  utilized  to  moisten  and  fertilize  the 
soil,  and  then  be  turned  into  canals,  serving  the  double 
purpose  of  drainage  and  transportation.  He  claims  that 
it  is  feasible,  from  an  engineering  stand-point,  to  con- 
struct such  works,  and  to  propel  trains  of  freight-boats 
by  electricity  at  a  speed  of  six  miles  an  hour.  If  this 
shall  be  done,  the  gain  to  the  State  will  be  beyond  all 
calculation,  provided  the  works  be  owned  by  the  public. 
It  is  by  no  means  an  idle  dream  when  considered  in  con- 
nection with  ultimate  California. 

149 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

The  third  field  for  future  development  is  a  vast  region 
lying  upon  the  eastern  slope  of  the  Sierra  Nevada.  This 
is  so  little  known  to  the  outside  world  that  it  may  almost 
be  named  as  Undiscovered  California.  It  is  reached 
only  by  lines  of  narrow-gauge  railway  running  northwest 
and  southwest,  respectively,  from  Reno,  Nevada.  The 
northerly  district  is  included  in  the  three  great  coun- 
ties of  Plumas,  Lassen,  and  Modoc.  The  country  is 
distinctly  arid,  lying  upon  the  western  flank  of  the  great 
basin  formed  by  the  Sierra  Nevada  and  Wasatch  ranges, 
which  inclose  portions  of  California,  Idaho,  and  Utah,  and 
all  of  Nevada.  Here  we  find  the  real  sage-brush  desert — 
fertile,  well- watered  valleys  surrounded  by  all  the  wealth 
of  forest,  mine,  and  natural  pastures.  The  climate  ap- 
proximates much  more  nearly  to  that  of  New  Mexico 
than  to  that  commonly  associated  with  the  name  of  Cali- 
fornia. It  is  of  the  milder  type  of  the  temperate  zone, 
favorable  to  the  growth  of  such  hardy  fruits  as  apples, 
pears,  peaches,  and  prunes.  Up  to  this  time,  however, 
the  chief  products  of  the  country  are  native  and  alfalfa 
hay,  cattle,  sheep,  and  horses.  The  sparse  population 
is,  perhaps,  as  prosperous  as  any  farming  community  in 
the  United  States.  This  fact  is  mostly  due  to  the  vast 
extent  of  fine  grazing  lands  surrounding  irrigated  valleys 
and  to  the  herds  of  cattle  and  sheep  which  find  their  way 
to  the  farmers'  hay-stacks  from  the  ranges  of  northern 
California,  southern  Oregon,  and  western  Nevada  every 
autumn  and  winter. 

The  most  important  district  in  this  region  is  Honey 
Lake  Valley,  lying  eighty  miles  northwest  of  Reno.  Here 
a  new  era  has  set  in  with  water-storage  for  irrigation, 
small  farms,  and  colonies  planned  upon  the  best  ideals. 

150 


EMPIKE    STATE    OF   THE    PACIFIC 

Cheap  land,  valuable  surrounding  resources,  and  a  cli- 
mate similar  to  that  in  which  our  race  has  flourished 
best,  would  seem  to  combine  in  favoring  a  large  and 
rapid  future  growth. 

The  more  southern  body  east  of  the  Sierras  lies  chiefly 
in  Inyo  County.  This  is  also  at  the  early  stage  of 
development.  The  climate  is  milder,  though  still  tem- 
perate rather  than  semi-tropical,  than  in  the  more  north- 
em  counties.  There  are  many  beautiful  valleys  and  an 
abundance  of  water,  timber,  and  minerals. 

Lack  of  railroad  facilities  and  remoteness  from  large 
cities  account  for  the  backwardness  of  development  in 
these  attractive  regions  on  the  eastern  slope  of  the  moun- 
tains. They  present  to-day  the  finest  field  for  develop- 
ment in  California,  and  one  of  the  finest  in  the  United 
States.  There  can  be  no  question  that  during  this 
century  they  will  become  the  homes  of  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  people  and  the  seat  of  a  manifold  industrial 
life. 

The  fourth  field  open  to  future  conquest  is  a  district 
which  was  formerly  the  most  famous  of  waste  places  in 
America.  In  the  earlier  edition  of  this  work,  written 
in  1899,  I  spoke  of  this  locality  as  follows : 

"It  is  popularly  regarded  as  an  empire  of  hopeless 
sterility,  the  silence  of  which  will  never  be  broken  by  the 
voices  of  men.  As  the  transcontinental  traveller  views  it 
from  his  flying  train  it  presents  an  aspect  indeed  forbid- 
ding. Neither  animal  life  nor  human  habitation  breaks 
its  level  monotony.  It  stretches  from  mountain-range 
to  mountain-range,  a  brown  waste  of  dry  and  barren 
soil.     And  yet  it  only  awaits  the  touch  of  water  and  of 

151 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  ARID  AMERICA 

labor  to  awaken  into  opulent  life.*  *  *  Much  time  will 
be  required  to  overcome  the  wide  and  ingrained  public 
prejudice  against  the  Colorado  Desert,  but  it  wiil  finally 
be  reclaimed  and  sustain  tens  of  thousands  of  prosperous 
people.  It  is  more  like  Syria  than  any  other  part  of  the 
United  States,  and  the  daring  imagination  may  readily 
conceive  that  here  a  new  Damascus  will  arise  more 
beautiful  than  that  of  old." 

Six  short  years  have  passed,  yet  the  dream  has  al- 
ready come  true.  The  very  name  of  "  The  Colorado 
Desert  '^  has  vanished  from  the  minds  of  men,  and  in  its 
place  we  have  a  term  which  is  synonymous  with  the 
highest  productivity,  with  fat  acres  and  fat  cattle,  with 
green  fields,  flowing  waters,  red-roofed  farm  houses,  and 
rising  towns.  This  name  is  "The  Imperial  Valley." 
In  the  summer  of  1901,  the  waters  of  the  Colorado  River 
were  turned  upon  this  desert,  and  the  most  dramatic 
transformation  ever  seen  in  the  United  States  quickly 
followed.  Settlers  and  speculators  rushed  in  to  file  upon 
the  land  and  purchase  water  rights.  Nearly  a  quarter 
of  a  million  acres  were  thus  acquired  in  the  space  of  a  few 
months,  and  the  work  of  development  went  forward  with 
furious  energy. 

While  much  of  the  land  was  taken  under  evil  land  laws 
which  do  not  require  actual  residence  or  genuine  improve- 
ment, nevertheless,  over  one  hundred  thousand  acres 
were  prepared  for  cultivation  and  planted  to  crops. 
Towns  with  schools,  churches,  banks,  fine  hotels,  and 
all  the  conveniences  of  civilization,  sprang  up  like  magic. 
Railroads  were  quickly  extended  into  the  country,  while 
telephone  and  telegraph   supplied  the  means  of  quick 

152 


THE  DESERT  BEFORE  AND  AFTER.— Upper  picture  shows  Colorado 
Desert  (now  Imperial  Valley),  California,  as  it  appeared  before 
irrigation— a  brown  waste  of  soil  without  vegetation.  Lower 
picture  shows  the  same  land  after  irrigation,  with  two  years' 
growth  of  cottonwoods. 


EMPIRE    STATE    OF   THE    PACIFIC 

communication.  In  a  word,  the  picture  which  I  drew 
from  imagination  in  1899  is  reproduced  on  the  face  of 
the  earth  in  1905.  And  yet,  what  we  now  see  is  but  the 
beginning  of  the  achievement  which  will  come  in  the 
^future.  This  will  be  one  of  the  most  densely  peopled 
agricultural  districts  in  the  worid,  and  wealth  which 
cannot  now  be  estimated  will  come  from  the  soil  which, 
a  few  years  ago,  the  average  man  would  have  scorned  if 
offered  a  deed  in  fee  simple  for  the  whole  domain.  There 
could  be  no  more  wonderful  example  of  the  miracle  of 
irrigation. 

The  work  which  has  been  accomplished  by  private 
enterprise  in  the  rich  delta  of  the  Colorado  River  is  one 
which  was  peculiariy  adapted  to  national  enterprise. 
Doubtless  it  would  have  been  done  by  the  Government 
if  the  private  undertaking  had  been  delayed  by  so  much 
as  two  or  three  years.  The  National  Irrigation  Act  be- 
came a  law  within  twelve  months  of  the  time  that  water 
was  first  turned  upon  the  deseri;.  The  region  imme- 
diately attracted  the  attention  of  the  national  engineers, 
who  proceeded  to  plan  comprehensive  works,  of  which 
we  shall  learn  the  details  in  subsequent  pages.  In  the 
spring  of  1904,  a  strong  public  demand  arose  for  the 
inclusion  of  the  Imperial  region  in  the  Government  proj- 
ect. This  demand  was  based  to  some  extent  upon  the 
apprehension  that  the  private  system  would  prove  un- 
equal to  the  demands  of  the  situation,  but  more  upon 
complications  which  had  arisen  with  Mexico,  and  upon 
the  deep-seated  popular  antipathy  to  the  private  mono- 
poly of  water  in  an  arid  land.  The  movement  encoun- 
tered temporary  failure  because  the  Government  and  the 

153 


THE  CONQUEST  OP  AEID  AMEKICA 

private  owners  could  not  agree  on  the  purchase  price  of 
the  irrigation  system  which  had  produced  such  sudden 
and  dazzling  results  in  the  development  of  the  region. 
The  price  recommended  by  the  settlers  and  accepted  by 
the  Company,""  was  three  million  dollars.  Whether  this 
figure  was  reasonable  or  exorbitant  can  only  be  deter- 
mined by  future  events,  but  there  can  be  no  possible 
doubt  that  the  final  outcome  will  be  a  single  comprehen- 
sive work  of  reclamation,  from  the  Grand  Canyon  of  the 
Colorado  to  the  Gulf  of  California,  controlled  by  the 
United  States  of  America.  Nothing  short  of  this  is 
worthy  of  the  opportunity. 

The  town  life  of  California,  considered  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  man  who  contemplates  going  West, 
is  not  strikingly  different  from  that  in  any  other  part 
of  the  United  States.  The  growth  of  towns  is  out  of  all 
proportion  to  the  development  of  the  surrounding 
country.  This  is  due  rather  to  an  influx  of  Eastern 
people  than  to  any  local  tendency  to  desert  the  rural 
districts.  If  in  certain  restricted  localities  young  men 
are  leaving  the  farm  for  the  city,  the  loss  is  more  than 
made  good  by  the  number  of  newcomers  who  are  seeking 
homes  in  the  country.  The  fact  remains  that  urban 
growth  is  strongest  because  the  majority  of  those  coming 
from  older  sections  of  the  United  States  seek  to  make 
places  for  themselves  in  the  larger  centres  of  popula- 
tion. 

The  commercial  and  political  centre  of  California  is, 
of  course,  San  Francisco.  The  State's  front  door  is  the 
Golden  Gate.  The  metropolitan  community,  which  may 
be  defined  as  Greater  San  Francisco,  includes  all  ih^ 

154 


TOWN  BUILDING  IN  THE  DESERT.— Upper  picture  shovvs  beginning 

of  Imperial,  California,  March,  igoi.    Lower  picture,  one 

side  of  same  street  four  years  later. 


EMPIEE    STATE    OF   THE    PACIFIC 

cities  and  towns  about  the  bay.  And  though  this  com- 
munity is  little  more  than  fifty  years  old,  it  is  already 
about  the  size  of  Boston.  There  is  apparently  no  reason 
why  it  should  not,  in  the  course  of  the  long  future,  be- 
come as  large  and  important  in  every  way  as  New  York 
itself.  Never  was  there  a  better  foundation  for  a  mighty 
city  than  in  San  Francisco  and  its  environs — the  moun- 
tain-sheltered harbor,  with  wide  expanse  of  deep  waters; 
the  sloping  shores  running  back  to  foothills  and  moun- 
tains; the  noble  bay  stretching  inland,  with  rivers 
navigable  far  into  the  interior;  half  a  continent  behind 
it,  and  before  it  the  measureless  possibilities  of  foreign 
worlds.  When  to  these  substantial  considerations  are 
added  the  charms  of  climate  and  scenery  and  the  social 
and  educational  advantages  which  have  arisen,  and  must 
arise  much  more  in  the  future,  from  the  wise  use  of 
private  and  public  wealth,  one  might  be  excused  for 
dreaming  of  San  Francisco  as  the  focal  point  of  civiliza- 
tion in  coming  generations. 

Of  the  cities  about  the  bay,  Oakland  is  second  in  im- 
portance to  San  Francisco,  to  which  it  sustains  about  the 
same  relation  as  Brooklyn  to  New  York.  Like  Brooklyn, 
it  is  becoming  important  in  manufacture  and  commerce, 
having  a  magnificent  water  frontage  where  goods  may  be 
moved  to  east-bound  trains  directly  from  the  ships,  in- 
stead of  having  to  be  ferried  across  the  bay,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  sister  city.  Alameda  is  a  delightful  residence 
suburb.  Berkeley  is  the  seat  of  that  institution  which  is 
the  pride  of  the  people,  the  University  of  California. 
Among  the  numerous  and  beautiful  towns  near  San 
Francisco,  Palo  Alto  enjoys  a  special  prominence  as  the 

155 


THE   CONQUEST   OF   ARID   AMERICA 

site  of  Leland  Stanford  Junior  TTniversity.  The  growth 
of  all  the  communities  clustering  about  San  Francisco, 
while  not  sensational  in  recent  years,  is  constant  and 
substantial. 

Sacramento  is  the  chief  city  of  the  valley  of  that 
name.  It  contains  about  thirty  thousand  people  and  is 
the  capital  of  the  State.  While  its  relative  importance 
is  by  no  means  the  same  as  in  the  early  mining  times, 
it  is  a  beautiful  and  influential  community,  and  destined 
to  be  more  so  as  its  surrounding  resources  are  developed. 

Of  the  cities  of  the  San  Joaquin,  Stockton  is  most 
advantageously  located.  It  stands  at  the  head  of  naviga- 
tion on  the  San  Joaquin  River,  in  the  midst  of  a  rich 
agricultural  region.  It  should  be,  as  it  is  now  becoming, 
the  seat  of  many  industries.  It  is  difficult  to  place 
limits  upon  the  reasonable  growth  of  Stockton  whenever 
the  policy  of  irrigation,  of  the  subdivision  of  lands,  and  of 
diversified  farming,  shall  be  made  to  take  the  place  of 
dependence  upon  rainfall,  of  large  holdings,  and  of  the 
single  crop.  It  already  enjoys  cheap  freight  and  pas- 
senger transportation  to  San  Francisco,  by  lines  of 
steamers  which  cover  the  distance  in  a  night.  The  possi- 
bilities of  this  traffic  are  immense  and  the  advantages 
which  it  confers  upon  Stockton  as  a  commercial  and 
manufacturing  city  in  connection  with  agricultural  de- 
velopment are  well-nigh  incalculable. 

The  chief  cities  of  the  south  are  Los  Angeles  and  San 
Diego.     The  growth   of  the  former  is   amazing.*     Its 

*  Los  Angeles  had  a  population,  by  the  U.  S.  Census. 
In  1850,      1,610  In  1880,      11,183 

1860,      4,385  1890,      50,395 

1870,      5,728  1900,    102,479 

156 


EMPIRE    STATE    OF   THE    PACIFIC 

present  total  is  not  far  from  two  hundred  thousand,  and 
no  one  familiar  with  its  history  would  be  much  surprised 
to  see  it  approximate  half  a  million  by  the  date  of  the 
next  national  census.  The  secret  of  its  vitality  is  not 
found  on  the  surface.  It  is  not  due  to  its  commerce,  for 
it  is  twenty  miles  from  the  sea  and  without  a  natural 
harbor,  though  even  this  deficiency  is  now  being  supplied 
by  public  enterprise.  Neither  does  its  trade  with  the 
interior  account  for  its  constant  and  ever-increasing 
prosperity.  The  superlative  charm  of  Los  Angeles  and 
the  region  surrounding  is  social  rather  than  economic. 
Men  and  women  desire  to  live  where  they  may  realize 
their  highest  possibilities  as  social  beings.  And  Los 
Angeles  has  become  the  metropolis  of  a  district  which 
satisfies  this  instinct  more  fully  than  any  other  part  of 
the  United  States.  People  come  originally  as  tourists 
to  spend  a  few  blissful  weeks  in  the  winter.  Many  of 
them  return  as  colonists  and  throw  themselves  into  the 
life  of  the  place  with  all  the  zeal  of  converts,  thereby 
swelling  a  tide  of  public  spirit  which  is  already  indomi- 
table. Their  confidence  in  the  future  is  boundless,  and 
they  "pull  their  weight," — all  of  them.  That  it  is 
which  has  made  Los  Angeles. 

In  the  most  remarkable  book  ever  written  about  Cali- 
fornia, "  The  Right  Hand  of  the  Continent,"  Mr.  Charles 
F.  Lummis  makes  the  following  striking  statements 
concerning  the  growth  of  Los  Angeles: 

"  Not  one  city  in  the  United  States  which  was  no  larger  than 
Los  Angeles  in  1890  is  larger  now ;  not  one  city  which  was  no 
larger  in  1880  is  larger  now.  In  other  words,  not  a  single  city 
in  the  Union  has  overtaken  Los  Angeles  in  rank  by  population. 

157 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  ARID  AMERICA 

But  in  these  two  decades,  Los  Angeles  has  outstripped  99 
American  cities  which  were  numerically  larger  in  1880  ;  and  in 
one  decade  has  passed  19  cities  that  were  numerically  larger  in 
1890.  In  1880,  Los  Angeles  was  the  135th  city  in  the  Union  in 
population.  In  1890  it  was  the  56th.  In  1900  it  was  the  36th. 
There  are  now  35  cities  in  the  United  States  larger  than  Los 
Angeles  ;  but  only  13  cities  have  gained  as  many  people  in  the 
ten  years  from  1890  to  1900." 

And  he  shows  that  the  cities  which  scored  a  larger  in- 
crease in  that  time  were  as  follows :  New  York,  Chicago, 
Philadelphia,  St.  Louis,  Boston,  Baltimore,  Cleveland, 
Buffalo,  Pittsburg,  Detroit,  Milwaukee,  Newark,  and 
Indianapolis. 

Southern  California  is  becoming  the  playground  of  the 
Republic,  and  Los  Angeles  is  its  capital.  But  those  who 
come  to  play  remain  to  work — to  build  hotels  and  office 
buildings,  to  establish  railroads  and  factories,  to  develop 
the  rich  natural  resources  of  the  country.  No  ordinary 
rules  explain  its  past  growth  or  set  limits  to  its  future 
expansion.  It  has  been,  and  it  will  be,  a  law  unto  it- 
self. 

The  case  of  San  Diego  is  somewhat  different.  A  great 
city  might  grow  up  upon  its  site  for  precisely  the  same 
reasons  that  great  cities  grew  up  at  Boston  and  New 
York.  San  Diego  has  the  only  natural  harbor  in  Cali- 
fornia south  of  San  Francisco.  It  is  the  nearest  Ameri- 
can port  to  the  Western  outlet  of  the  Panama  Canal.  It 
occupies  a  strategic  position  with  relation  to  the  com- 
merce of  Central  and  South  America,  Australia,  and  the 
Orient.  It  is  the  logical  terminus  of  a  transcontinental 
railway  which  would  make  the  shortest  line  across  the 
continent  to  some  port  on  the  South  Atlantic  Coast  of 

158 


EMPIRE    STATE    OF   THE    PACIFIC 

the  United  States.  Such  a  railway  would  have  the 
lowest  grades  and  the  most  certain  immunity  from  snow 
blockades.  It  ought  to  be  the  seaport  and  trading  centre 
for  Arizona — which  is  another  South  Africa — and  the 
whole  southwest.  If  nature  ever  planned  the  site  of  a 
great  city,  it  did  so  where  the  encircling  shores  rise  from 
plain  to  hill,  from  hill  to  mountain-range,  about  the 
lovely  bay  of  San  Diego.  The  city  has  a  population  of 
over  twenty-five  thousand  and  is  growing  rapidly. 

It  is  conceded  that  San  Diego  enjoys  the  best  climate 
in  the  United  States.  Those  who  visit  it  in  winter  de- 
clare that  that  season  is  more  delightful  than  its  perfect 
summer ;  and  those  who  visit  it  in  summer  declare  that  it 
is  then  even  better  than  in  winter.  And  both  are  right  I 
The  best  season  in  San  Diego  is  the  one  you  last  spent 
there,  whether  it  happens  to  be  winter  or  summer.  The 
city  lies  between  those  vast  mysteries,  the  desert  and  the 
sea,  and  its  atmosphere  is  a  charming  blend  of  both. 
These  extraordinary  climatic  conditions  must  in  time 
give  the  place  and  its  surroundings  an  enviable  pre- 
eminence as  a  popular  resort  all  the  year  round.  Eastern 
people  will  go  there  to  escape  the  cold  in  winter,  while 
thousands  will  flee  from  the  hot  interior  to  enjoy  its 
cooling  breezes  in  summer. 

The  future  of  California  will  be  very  different  from 
its  past.  It  has  been  the  land  of  large  things — of  large 
estates,  of  large  enterprises,  of  large  fortunes.  Under 
another  form  of  government  it  would  have  developed  a 
feudal  system,  with  a  landed  aristocracy  resting  on  a 
basis  of  servile  labor.  These  were  its  plain  tendencies 
years  ago,  when  somebody  coined  the  epigram,  "  Cali- 

159 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  AEID  AMERICA 

fornia  is  the  rich  man^s  paradise  and  the  poor  man's 
hell."  But  later  developments  have  shown  that  whatever 
of  paradise  the  Golden  State  can  offer  to  the  rich,  it 
will  share,  upon  terms  of  marvellous  equality,  with  the 
middle  class  of  American  life.  Over  and  above  all  other 
countries,  it  is  destined  to  be  the  land  of  the  common 
people.  This  is  true,  because,  owing  to  its  peculiar  cli- 
matic conditions,  it  requires  less  land  to  sustain  a  family 
in  generous  comfort.  For  the  same  reason,  cheaper  cloth- 
ing and  shelter,  as  well  as  less  fuel,  suffice,  while  it  is  pos- 
sible to  realize  more  perfectly  the  ideal  of  producing  what 
is  consumed.  Moreover,  it  is  a  natural  field  for  the  ap- 
plication of  associative  industry  and  the  growth  of  the 
highest  social  conditions.  Indeed,  the  country  has  dis- 
tinctly failed  as  a  land  of  big  things,  and  achieved  its 
best  successes  in  the  opposite  direction.  Its  true  and 
final  greatness  will  consist  of  the  aggregate  of  small 
things — of  small  estates,  of  small  enterprises,  of  small 
fortunes.  Progress  towards  this  end  is  already  well  be- 
gun. It  must  go  on  until  the  last  great  estate  is  dis- 
membered and  the  last  alien  serf  is  returned  to  the 
Orient.  Upon  the  ruins  of  the  old  system  a  bettei  civili- 
zation will  arise.  It  wiU  be  the  glory  of  the  common 
people,  to  whose  labor  and  genius  it  will  owe  its  exist- 
ence. Its  outreaching  and  beneficent  influence  will  be 
felt  throughout  the  world. 


160 


CHAPTER  II 
THE   NEW   DAY   IN   COLORADO 

The  old  day  in  Colorado  was  the  era  of  frontier  bar- 
barism. The  glitter  of  Pike's  Peak  gold  drew  throngs 
of  adventurous  folk  who  toiled  across  the  plains  of  Kan- 
sas and  Nebraska  in  wagon-trains  that  they  might  spec- 
ulate in  the  mysterious  possibilities  of  a  new  country. 
They  were  not  home- builders,  but  fortune-hunters. 
Wherever  they  found  placer  gold  rude  settlements  sprang 
up. 

In  the  mean  time  the  cattle  industry  began  to  contend 
with  Indians  and  buffalo  for  the  possession  of  the  grazing 
lands  which  sloped  away  from  the  llockies,  and  the  neces- 
sity of  a  base  of  supplies  planted  the  seeds  of  a  few  per- 
manent towns,  such  as  Denver  and  Pueblo.  These  were 
mere  clusters  of  rude  homes  and  stores  which  seemed  to 
hold  out  scant  promise  of  future  importance.  The  In- 
dians were  numerous  and  troublesome,  and  the  life  of 
the  pioneers  was  spiced  with  danger.  Though  the  coun- 
try belonged  nominally  to  Kansas,  there  was  but  the 
slightest  pretence  of  civil  government.  Practically  the 
only  authority  was  that  exercised  by  organizations  of  cit- 
izens, who  brought  horse-thieves  and  murderers  to  speedy 
justice  upon  the  most  convenient  tree. 

In  1861  Colorado  became  a  Territory,  and  was  then 
L  161 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  ARID  AMERICA 

able  to  deal  more  effectively  with  the  Indian,  who  was 
the  common  enemy  and  an  obstacle  to  settlement  and 
development.  There  was  little  in  these  early  conditions 
to  encourage  the  hope  that  a  great  and  populous  State 
could  be  established  amid  the  mountains  and  plateaus. 
Mines,  cattle,  and  border  traffic  were  not  alone  sufficient 
for  the  making  of  civilization.  Beyond  these  crude  in- 
dustries the  future  was  speculative.  The  country  was 
unexplored,  the  resources  undeveloped,  the  conditions 
untried.  The  transformation  which  swiftly  followed 
upon  this  period  of  doubt  converted  the  frontier  commu- 
nity into  one  of  the  most  brilliant  and  promising  of 
American  States. 

The  dawn  of  the  new  day  was  heralded  by  the  whistle 
of  the  locomotive.  The  dissolution  of  the  Union  armies 
had  turned  the  faces  of  many  thousand  veterans  towards 
the  trans-Missouri  region,  and  of  these  Colorado  re- 
ceived its  full  share.  The  wonderful  era  of  railroad- 
building — perhaps  the  most  dramatic  page  in  all  our  in- 
dustrial history — had  just  begun.  These  circumstances 
conspired  to  give  a  new  and  powerful  impulse  to  the  ter- 
ritory at  the  base  of  the  Rocky  Mountains.  Large  cap- 
ital joined  hands  with  the  increasing  stream  of  immi- 
grants, and  Colorado  entered  with  amazing  vigor  upon  a 
stage  of  real  and  far-reaching  development.  More  im- 
portant than  the  finding  of  gold  was  the  discovery  of 
the  fact  that  the  highest  forms  of  agriculture  would 
flourish  with  the  aid  of  irrigation.  When  this  had  been 
demonstrated  by  the  pioneers  there  was  no  longer  doubt 
about  the  future  greatness  of  the  State  or  the  character 
of  its  civilization.  Denver  and  a  few  other  settlements 
began  to  take  on  the  appearance  of  permanency,  and 

162 


THE   T^EW   DAY   IN"   COLORADO 

even  to  exhibit  the  signs  of  coming  refinement  and 
power. 

The  settlers  of  Greeley  inaugurated  large  irrigation 
enterprises  and  planted  seeds  from  which  the  finest  civic 
institutions  were  to  grow.  General  William  J.  Palmer 
and  his  friends,  anticipating  the  commercial  value  of  cli- 
mate and  scenery  even  before  the  industrial  economy  of 
the  community  was  established,  laid  out  Colorado  Springs, 
at  the  foot  of  Pike's  Peak,  and  began  to  make  Manitou 
and  the  Garden  of  the  Gods  ready  for  future  thousands 
of  health-seekers  and  tourists.  Pueblo  quickly  felt  the 
importance  of  its  position  on  the  banks  of  the  Arkan- 
sas at  the  gateway  of  the  mountains,  and  developed  rap- 
idly in  population  and  business.  The  daring  conception 
of  a  railroad  to  parallel  the  Rockies  and  open  communi- 
cation with  Mexico,  or  to  scale  the  giant  peaks  and 
penetrate  the  wilderness  which  lay  beyond,  took  posses- 
sion of  General  Palmer's  mind  and  furnished  the  hope 
of  further  extraordinary  developments. 

Thus  the  decade  between  1870  and  1880  saw  the  rise 
of  Colorado  to  a  place  of  immense  promise  and  of  im- 
portant achievement,  and  in  1876  the  nation  signalized 
the  centennial  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  by  be- 
stowing the  rich  privilege  of  sovereignty  upon  the  new- 
born commonwealth. 

The  Colorado  of  to-day  contains  a  population  of 
more  than  half  a  million.  It  is  marvellously  fort- 
unate in  its  railroad  development,  having  twenty-four 
separate  lines,  which  maintain  over  five  thousand  miles 
of  track,  penetrating  nearly  every  part  of  the  State.  Its 
mines  of  precious  and  base  metals — very  largely  the 
former — yield  an  annual  income  of  nearly  fifty  millions. 

163 


THE   CONQUEST   OF   ARID  AMERICA 

Its  two  million  acres  of  irrigated  land  add  forty  millions 
more  to  the  annual  industrial  product.  Manufactures, 
including  smelting  and  refining  works,  produce  goods  to 
the  value  of  one  hundred  millions.  Other  business 
transactions,  represented  by  the  commercial  and  pro- 
fessional classes,  represent  considerably  more  than  one 
hundred  millions  each  year.  The  live-stock  indus- 
try is  dijBficult  to  estimate,  but  adds  very  largely  to  the 
yearly  production  of  wealth. 

Such  are  the  results  wrought  out  by  the  labor  of  a 
single  generation  upon  the  raw  resources  of  a  new  State. 
Before  glancing  at  the  people  who  have  organized  such 
an  economic  life  in  so  brief  a  space  of  years,  and  at  the 
institutions  they  have  created,  it  is  important  to  con- 
sider the  material  foundation  on  which  they  have  built. 

Colorado  owes  something  to  its  scenery,  much  to  its 
climate,  yet  more  to  its  mines.  The  first  of  these  made 
it  widely  known  as  one  of  nature's  wonderlands.  The 
second  was  a  prime  factor  in  attracting  population. 
The  third  poured  a  large  and  continuous  stream  of 
wealth  into  the  hands  of  the  people,  and  a  little  further 
on  we  shall  see  how  loyally  this  has  been  used  for  the 
benefit  of  the  State.  The  grandeur  of  the  scenery  and 
the  charm  of  the  climate  are  both  matters  of  popular 
knowledge.  Neither  is  peculiar  to  Colorado,  for  both 
are  characteristic  of  the  arid  region  as  a  whole.  But 
nowhere  else  do  the  ordinary  paths  of  travel  lead 
through  so  grand  a  scenic  region  as  in  Colorado,  nor  has 
any  other  locality  been  as  fortunate  in  the  energy  and 
intelligence  bestowed  upon  the  work  of  making  this 
phase  of  its  attractions  widely  and  favorably  known. 

The  Colorado  climate  is  the  product  of  high  altitude 
164 


THE   NEW   DAY  IN   COLORADO 

and  aridity.  Denver  is  one  mile  above  the  level  of  New 
York  harbor,  and  much  of  the  inhabited  portion  of  the 
State  is  even  higher.  The  result  is  a  rarefied  atmos- 
phere very  exhilarating  in  its  effects  and  extremely 
favorable  to  persons  suffering  with  certain  kinds  of  dis- 
eases. Summer  and  winter  are  almost  equally  de- 
lightful, though  presenting  great  extremes  of  heat  and 
cold. 

Of  the  mineral  wealth  it  is  needless  to  say  more  than 
that  it  increases  its  annual  output  with  regularity,  and 
that  there  is  every  reason  to  suppose  that  much  the 
greater  part  of  it  yet  remains  to  be  discovered  and  de- 
veloped. It  will  be  a  permanent  resource  of  the  highest 
utility,  since  most  of  it  is  directly  converted  into  money 
at  the  local  mints.  While  the  energies  of  the  mining 
industry  are  chiefly  centred  upon  the  search  for  precious 
metals,  the  country  is  endowed  with  the  greatest  variety 
of  mineral  riches.  These  include  nearly  all  the  base 
metals,  such  as  copper,  lead,  and  iron,  as  well  as  coal,  oil, 
precious  and  semi  -  precious  stones,  granite,  marble, 
onyx,  and  sandstone.  These  materials  exist  in  the  great- 
est pr6f  usion,  but  must  lie  mostly  unused  until  the  pop- 
ulation largely  increases. 

In  considering  the  matter  of  agricultural  development, 
it  must  be  remembered  that  Colorado  is  the  crown  of 
the  continent.  Its  lofty  mountain-peaks  cut  the  rain- 
fall and  melting  snows  in  twain,  sending  one  part  to  the 
Pacific  and  the  other  to  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  The  same 
influence  makes  a  radical  division  in  climate,  produc- 
tions, and  the  character  of  agriculture.  Irrigation  devel- 
opment naturally  began  earliest  where  streams  could 
most  easily  be  diverted.     This  was  on  the  high  plateau 

165 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  ARID  AMERICA 

which  slopes  eastward  from  the  foot-hills  and  merges  into 
the  G-reat  Plains  of  Nebraska  and  Kansas. 

For  a  period  of  nearly  twenty   years,   beginning  in 
1870,   canal  construction  and  the  settlement  of  lands 
were  actively  carried  on  in  this  part  of  the  State.     The 
scene  of    action  was   principally  in    the  valleys  of  the 
Cache  la  Poudre,  the  Platte,  and  the  Arkansas.    Here  the 
farms  are  of  large  size  for  an  irrigated  region,  though 
the  present  tendency  favors  a  smaller  unit.     These  dis- 
tricts have  taken  on  a  new  growth  of  late,  with  the 
prosperity  of  the  State  and  the  country.     The  products 
are    diversified   and   largely    disposed   of   in   the   home 
market.      In    the    upper    Arkansas    Valley,    where    the 
foot-hills    furnish    shelter    from    the    high    winds    pre- 
vailing at  certain  seasons,  fruit-culture  has  been  notably 
successful.     Prices  of  unimproved  lands  on  the  eastern 
slope  range  from  twenty  to  fifty  dollars  per  acre,  while 
cultivated  lands  are  valued  at  one  hundred  dollars  an 
acre  and  upwards,  according  to  the  extent  of  improve- 
ments and  location  with  reference   to  cities  or  large 
towns.     The  glimpse  we  have  had  in  an  earlier  chapter 
of  the  agricultural  industry  of  Greeley  Colony  may  be 
accepted  as  true  of  the  entire  region  east  of  the  moun- 
tains, for  Greeley  has  been  the  model   to  which  other 
districts  have  looked  for  inspiration.     The  experimental 
farms  which  surround  the  agricultural  college  at  Fort 
Collins  undoubtedly  represent  the  highest  type  of  irri- 
gation results  in  this  part  of  the  State.     In  the  Arkansas 
Valley  the  altitude  is  lower  and  the  climate  more  favor- 
able for  small  farming  and  fruit-culture. 

The  San  Luis  Valley  is  an  elevated  plateau  lying  be- 
tween parallel  mountain  -  ranges  in  the  southern  and 

166 


THE  NEW  DAY  IN  COLOKADO 

central  part  of  the  State.  Here  a  vast  expenditure  has 
been  made  for  irrigation  works,  but  the  earlier  efforts  at 
settlement  were  disappointing.  The  explanation  is  not 
to  be  found  in  the  altitude,  which  is  from  seven  thousand 
to  eight  thousand  feet  above  sea  level,  for  the  country 
makes  a  wonderful  yield  of  grain  and  of  vegetables,  as 
well  as  of  apples  and  small  fruits.  While  it  is  true  that 
many  of  the  earlier  settlers  made  failures  through  dif- 
ferent causes,  yet  there  are  instances  of  the  greatest  pros- 
perity on  the  part  of  others.  Numerous  experiments 
have  demonstrated  the  adaptability  of  the  soil  to  the 
raising  of  sugar  beets,  and  it  is  probable  that  this  valley 
will  share  with  other  portions  of  the  State  in  the  pros- 
perity attendant  upon  the  beet  sugar  industry.  A  strik- 
ing example  of  prosperity  is  seen  in  the  thriving  com- 
munities of  Mormons.  The  industrial  system  which  we 
have  already  studied  in  connection  with  Utah  produces 
the  same  good  results  in  the  San  Luis  Valley.  In  view 
of  these  facts  it  must  be  assumed  that  the  locality  will 
eventually  be  thickly  settled  and  sustain  thousands  of 
prosperous  people.  Land  and  water  may  be  obtained 
more  cheaply  here  than  anywhere  else  in  Colorado  and 
there  is  a  good  market  for  the  products  of  the  soil.  The 
costly  preliminary  work  of  reclamation  has  been  well 
done  in  advance.  A  labor  colony,  founded  upon  wise 
plans,  backed  by  sufficient  capital,  and  inspired  and  man- 
aged by  skilful  leadership,  would  solve  the  problem  of  col- 
onization for  the  San  Luis  Valley,  while  furnishing  work 
and  homes  for  those  who  need  them.  The  Mormon  com- 
munities are  practically  of  this  character  in  the  beginning. 
The  western  slope  of  Colorado  constitutes  a  region 
entirely  distinct.  From  a  casual  glance  at  the  map  it 
would  be  inferred  that  about  two-thirds  of  the  State  con- 

167 


.  THE   CON'QUEST   OF  AEID  AMERICA 

sist  exclnsively  of  mountains,  and  are  therefore  unfitted 
for  settlement.  The  truth  is  that  there  are  many  beau- 
tiful valleys  of  varying  size  and  elevation,  and  that  these 
are  destined  to  sustain  the  most  interesting  and  profit- 
able agricultural  districts  of  Colorado.  Unlike  the  east- 
ern slope,  there  is  here  more  water  than  irrigable  land — 
a  condition  almost  unique  in  the  arid  region.  The  val- 
leys are  so  protected  by  the  mountains  which  inclose 
them  upon  either  hand  as  to  have  a  climate  of  their  own. 
This  is  perceptibly  influenced  by  the  warm  winds  which 
make  their  way  from  the  Gulf  of  California  through  the 
canyons  of  the  Colorado  river.  These  conditions  are 
extremely  favorable  for  the  culture  of  the  most  delicate 
fruit  and  for  the  diversification  of  general  crops.  The 
principal  rivers  of  the  western  slope  are  the  Grand,  the 
Green,  and  the  San  Juan.  These  are  fed  by  the  prolific 
snows  of  the  higher  Rockies,  and  carry  a  strong  and  tur- 
bulent flow  of  water  throughout  the  year.  They  are  not 
always  readily  diverted,  however,  as  their  channels  have 
been  deeply  cut  through  the  rocks  and  soil,  and  the 
stream  often  flows  below  the  level  of  the  tract  to  be  irri- 
gated. This  makes  it  necessary  to  elevate  the  water  in 
many  instances  by  pumping  machinery,  which  can  be 
operated  cheaply  by  the  power  of  the  stream  itself,  or 
by  the  use  of  coal,  which  in  many  cases  is  found  close  at 
hand. 

The  best  example  of  the  possibilities  of  the  western 
slope  is  seen  in  the  neighborhood  of  Grand  Junction, 
where  two  splendid  streams — the  Grand  and  the  Gunni- 
son— join  forces  and  flow  westward  to  their  meeting  with 
the  Green  river  across  the  Utah  boundary.  Here  the 
valley  opens  out  into  a  broad  desert,  with  foot-hills,  or 

168 


THE   NEW   DAY   IN   COLORADO 

mesas,  marking  the  rise  to  the  mountain  masses  which 
line  the  horizon  on  either  hand.  To  the  eye  of  the 
traveller  who  has  just  come  through  the  awe-inspiring 
scenery  of  the  mountains  and  narrow  upper  valleys, 
nothing  could  be  less  promising  than  the  brown  waste  of 
arid  soil  which  he  beholds  upon  approaching  Grand 
Junction.  The  scene  is  one  of  utter  desolation,  for  even 
sage-brush  and  mesquite  are  absent  from  large  portions 
of  the  landscape.  The  roaring  river  hurrying  down  the 
slope  seems  to  mock,  with  hoarse  laughter,  the  unfruitful 
soil,  which  stretches  away  from  its  banks  in  silence  and 
in  sunshine.  But  if  the  traveller  leaves  the  train  and 
rides  out  a  few  miles  upon  the  desert  he  will  quickly  in- 
terpret the  mystery  of  these  conditions.  Wherever  the 
water  has  been  married  to  the  soil,  prolific  fields  and 
orchards  have  sprung  from  the  union — such  fields  and 
orchards  as  may  be  rivalled  as  yet  only  in  semi-tropic 
California.  The  favorite  size  of  farms  is  from  ten  to 
twenty  acres,  or  only  about  one-fourth  or  one-eighth  of 
the  average  area  of  farms  on  the  eastern  slope  of  Col- 
orado. 

Fruit-culture  chiefly  claims  the  thought  and  energy 
of  the  people  in  this  locality,  and  it  is  very  profitable. 
Peaches  are  the  leading  product,  and  they  are  wonderful 
for  flavor,  size,  and  beauty.  A  local  festival  is  "  Peach 
Day,"  when  people  come  from  all  directions  to  feast 
upon  the  free  bounty  of  Grand  Junction.  Lands  are  held 
high,  ranging  from  fifty  to  one  hundred  and  fifty  dollars 
per  acre,  though  they  were  but  recently  public  property 
and  of  no  value  until  irrigation  facilities  had  been  pro- 
vided. The  excuse  for  these  high  prices  is  the  fact  that 
orchards  in  bearing  frequently  earn  one  hundred  and  fifty 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  ARID  AMERICA 

dollars  and  upwards  per  acre  each  year.  This  is  due  in 
part  to  the  marvellous  quality  of  the  fruit,  and  in  part 
to  the  extensive  home  markets  offered  by  mining  camps 
in  the  mountains,  and  by  large  towns  such  as  Denver, 
Pueblo,  and  Colorado  Springs.  In  view  of  the  severe 
limitations  which  nature  has  placed  upon  the  territory 
suited  to  the  highest  culture  of  delicate  fruits,  and  of  the 
steady  growth  of  the  consumers  in  mountain  districts 
and  large  towns,  there  is,  perhaps,  good  reason  to  hope 
that  profits  will  be  well  sustained  for  a  long  time  to 
come. 

These  conditions  make  the  western  slope  choice  ground 
for  settlement.  They  are  by  no  means  limited  to  the 
lower  valley  of  the  Grand,  but  exist  in  the  numerous 
smaller  districts  scattered  through  the  mountains  in  the 
western  and  southwestern  part  of  the  State.-  On  the  so- 
cial side  the  possibilities  of  the  country  have  not  been 
much  developed,  as  there  has  been  a  lack  of  organized 
effort  in  settlement.  But  the  extraordinary  fertility  of 
the  soil,  the  extent  of  the  water  supply,  the  proximity  of 
mining  camps,  and  the  charm  of  the  climate  must  some- 
time combine  to  lend  a  powerful  impulse  to  the  highest 
development  of  these  favored  valleys. 

The  scenery  presents  not  merely  pictures,  but  pictures 
that  are  painted  and  tinted  and  wrought  into  fantastic 
shapes.  To  the  ever-changing  aspect  which  the  moun- 
tains, buttes,  and  mesas  gain  from  light  and  shadow,  from 
sun  and  cloud,  new  and  strange  beauties  are  added  by  the 
reds,  pinks,  yellows,  and  grays  of  soil  and  rock.  From 
the  vivid  cliffs  and  bluffs  which  stand  guard  upon  river 
banka  to  the  purple  and  shadowy  peaks  which  lift  their 
pointed  heads  on  the  utmost  horizon,  the  scene  is  one  of 

170 


THE   NEW  DAY  IN  COLORADO 

such  beauty  and  grandeur  as  may  be  felt,  though  not  de- 
scribed. 

Such  are  the  materials  of  Colorado.  Let  us  look  now 
at  the  people  and  their  civilization. 

Intense  local  patriotism  is  a  well-recognized  western 
trait,  but  in  Colorado  it  amounts  to  a  religion.  We 
have  seen  how  the  progress  of  California  was  impeded 
by  certain  elements  of  its  population  having  no  sym- 
pathy with  its  higher  ideals,  no  pride  in  its  best  achieve- 
ments. If  there  is  such  an  element  in  Colorado  it  is 
unseen  and  unfelt  in  the  larger  life  of  the  State.  The 
community  is  dominated  by  a  spirit  of  aggressive  enter- 
prise which  recognizes  no  impossibilities,  harbors  no 
doubts'  of  the  future.  This  is  the  explanation  of 
what  we  may  fairly  call — in  view  of  the  brief  time  con- 
sumed in  its  evolution  from  conditions  essentially  bar- 
baric— the  splendor  of  Colorado  civilization.  It  is  this 
which  created  Denver,  almost  the  fairest  of  American 
cities;  which  made  Colorado  Springs  the  centre  of 
wealth  and  refinement ;  which  blackened  the  sky  of  Pu- 
eblo with  the  smoke  of  a  young  Pittsburg;  which 
planted  Leadville  among  the  clouds ;  which  placed  a 
steam  ladder  against  the  dizzy  summit  of  Pike's  Peak ; 
which  carried  the  iron  highway  of  commerce  through 
gorges  and  mountain  -  passes ;  which  turned  rivers  out 
of  their  courses  that  barren  soil  might  blossom  with 
the  homes  of  men.  This  high  public  spirit  is  seen  in 
schools,  colleges,  clubs,  public  buildings,  and  improve- 
ments— above  all,  in  the  homes. 

It  has  been  the  policy  of  those  who  have  taken  riches 
from  the  mines  to  invest  them  in  developing  the  State's 
resources  and  in  beautifyinor  Hs  cities  and  towns.    In  this 

171 


THE   CONQUEST   OF   ARID  AMERICA 

respect  the  spirit  of  Coloradans  presents  a  sharp  con- 
trast to  that  of  many  who  grew  rich  in  California,  and 
of  most  of  those  who  received  the  enormous  wealth  coined 
from  the  resources  of  Nevada.  In  the  latter  instance 
the  beneficiaries  of  the  mines  did  not  even  make  their 
homes  in  the  land  which  raised  them  from  poverty  to  afflu- 
ence. But  the  men  of  Colorado  have  been  proud  of 
their  devotion  to  the  commonwealth  which  they  created, 
and  have  striven  by  every  means  in  their  power  to  keep 
it  moving  along  the  upward  path.  In  the  erection  of 
fine  public  and  business  buildings  and  of  palatial  homes, 
in  the  extension  of  railroads  and  irrigation  canals,  in  the 
increase  of  banking  capital,  and,  above  all,  in  the  pursuit 
of  daring  mining  operations,  their  enterprise  has  been  un- 
equalled by  that  of  any  other  western  community.  Fore- 
most among  those  who  inaugurated  this  policy  at  the 
risk  of  their  fortunes  was  the  late  H.  A.  W.  Tabor, 
whom  Denver  and  Colorado  should  always  hold  in  grate- 
ful remembrance. 

But  there  is  another  side  to  the  picture.  The  tenden- 
cies of  Colorado  civilization  are  not  wholly  in  line  with 
the  best  ideals  of  the  arid  region.  Viewed  from  this 
stand-point,  its  institutions  are  in  a  measure  disappoint- 
ing. The  marvel  of  Denver's  growth  and  the  beauty 
of  its  homes  and  business  districts  should  not  blind  us 
to  the  fact  that  it  is  essentially  like  the  great  cities  of 
the  East.  It  is,  in  a  word,  another  case  of  "progress 
and  poverty."  The  equality  which  marked  its  early  life 
has  diminished  in  proportion  to  the  growth  of  the  popu- 
lation and  the  increase  of  wealth.  The  rise  of  land 
values  has  made  it  more  difficult  for  the  many  to  own 
their  homes,  and  has  increased  the  wealth  of  the  land- 

173 


THE   NEW   DAY  IN   COLOKADO 

lord  class.  All  the  evils  which  grow  from  the  condi- 
tions of  life  in  a  large  city  are  rife  in  Denver. 

These  are  not  the  natural  economic  tendencies  of  a 
country  founded  upon  irrigation.  They  are  not  such  as 
we  have  observed  in  localities  where  irrigation  has  been 
80  nearly  the  dominant  influence  as  to  shape  institu- 
tions. The  explanation  is  found  in  the  influence  of 
mining  speculations  which,  diffused  like  the  atmos- 
phere, breed  a  cheerful  but  demoralizing  contagion : 
also  in  the  early  tendency  to  adopt  a  comparatively 
large  farm  unit.  These  two  forces  have  operated  to 
produce  very  different  results  from  those  flowing  from 
the  Mormon  land  policy,  which  we  saw  in  the  Salt  Lake 
Valley ;  or  from  those  which  grew  in  consequence  of  irri- 
gation in  the  San  Bernardino  Valley  of  California.  Large 
portions  of  Colorado  are  admirably  adapted  to  the  de- 
velopment of  the  best  social  conditions — of  those  condi- 
tions which  make  for  a  permanent  and  growing  body  of 
landed  proprietors;  for  the  multiplication  of  little  towns 
rather  than  a  concentration  of  people  in  congested  cen- 
tres ;  for  the  application  of  the  associative  principle  in 
connection  with  industrial  and  commercial  affairs.  It 
is  gratifying  to  be  able  to  record  that  the  latter  cur- 
rents of  thought  in  Colorado  seem  to  show  the  effects 
which  might  be  expected  to  result  from  its  environ- 
ment. 

More  and  more  the  State  asserts  its  authority  in  the 
control  of  irrigation  works  and  practice.  The  farm  unit 
grows  smaller,  and  intensive  cultivation  finds  more  fol- 
lowers. By  enormous  majorities  the  people  pronounce 
in  favor  of  party  platforms  which  demand  the  public 
ownership  of  public  utilities.     Equal  suffrage  and  the 

17H 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  AEID  AMERICA 

presence  of  women  in  the  legislature  mark  the  progres- 
sive temper  of  the  body  politic.  On  the  whole,  there  is 
much  reason  to  hope  that  the  social  achievement  of  the 
next  generation  in  Colorado  will  be  equal  to  the  material 
achievement  of  the  last. 


174 


CHAPTER  m 
THE  PLEASANT   LAND    OF  UTAH 

The  industrial  system  of  the  people  who  compose 
three-fourths  of  the  population  of  Utah  has  been  con- 
sidered in  connection  with  typical  institutions  of  the 
arid  region  in  earlier  pages.  It  remains  to  speak  of  the 
physical  aspects  of  the  newest  of  American  States. 

Standing  on  the  summit  of  Capitol  Hill  in  Salt  Lake 
City,  one  may  take  in  the  entire  range  of  Utah's  re- 
sources, developed  and  undeveloped,  in  a  single  sweeping 
glance. 

At  one's  feet  lies  the  mountain  metropolis,  with  the 
stately  temple  of  native  granite  supporting  the  golden 
figure  of  the  Angel  Moroni  on  its  culminating  turret, 
and  beside  it  the  odd-roofed  tabernacle,  like  an  enormous 
turtle  basking  in  the  sun.  Below,  the  miles  of  city 
streets  stretch  southward — a  huddle  of  business  blocks 
in  the  centre ;  a  series  of  garden-homes  hidden  by  leaves 
and  blossoms  on  either  hand.  Still  farther  out  the 
generous  city  lots  expand  into  little  farms  of  ten  or 
twenty  acres,  exemplifying  the  prosperous  irrigation  in- 
dustry, which  is  the  corner-stone  of  the  commonwealth. 
Far  down  the  valley  the  smelters  send  up  their  black 
smoke  to  the  sky — emblem  of  the  mining  industry.  At 
the  lower  end  and  on  the  sides  of  the  valley  lies  an  ei- 

175 


THE   CONQUEST   OF   ARID   AMERICA 

panse  of  arid  land  in  its  natural  desert  state,  typifying 
alike  the  conditions  encountered  by  the  pioneers  and 
the  present  aspect  of  a  vast  proportion  of  Utah.  On 
the  left,  one  sees  hastening  down  the  canyon  the  roaring 
creek  which  watered  the  first  crop  ever  planted  in  these 
valleys;  on  the  right,  the  glistening  expanse  of  the 
famous  inland  sea.  And  inclosing  all,  the  mountains — 
treasure-house  of  precious  metals,  of  coal,  of  iron,  of 
timber,  and  of  the  snows  and  waters  which  fertilized  the 
desert  and  made  it  blossom  with  civilization. 

Here  in  a  single  picture  is  all  of  Utah — town  and 
country,  farm,  workshop,  mine,  shrines  of  religion,  and 
play-grounds  of  wealth  and  leisure.  If  the  human  eye 
might  look  beyond  the  brown  barriers,  which  now  inter- 
cept the  view,  to  the  very  boundaries  of  the  State, 
it  would  see  nothing  more  than  it  sees  from  Capitol 
Hill,  for  Utah  is  a  succession  of  mountains,  of  desert 
valleys,  and  of  crystal  streams,  and  scattered  over  it  all  is 
the  wealth  of  the  mine  and  the  sleeping  potentiality — 
here  and  there  partially  awakened — of  the  home,  the 
field,  the  orchard,  and  the  workshop.  It  is  a  pleasant 
and  a  sunny  land,  unforgotten  by  the  most  casual  traveller 
who  has  crossed  it  and  well  loved  by  those  who  claim  it 
as  their  home.  It  is  easy  to  understand  the  feelings  of 
the  little  Utah  boy  who  tired  of  the  World^s  Fair  in  a 
very  few  days  and  begged,  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  to  be 
taken  back.  Asked  if  there  were  not  plenty  of  interest- 
ing sights  in  Chicago,  he  replied,  "  Yes,  but  I  can't  see 
no  mountains  !" 

Utah  has  a  population  of  about  a  quarter  of  a  million. 
Though  this  is  but  one-half  as  many  as  Colorado,  and 
one-fifth  as  many  as  California,  the  new  State  approaches 

176 


THE   PLEASA'NT   LAND   OF  UTAH 

more  nearly  to  the  ideal  of  a  self-supporting  community 
than  either  of  its  neighbors.  The  bulk  of  its  population 
has  been  trained  in  the  policy  of  industrial  independence 
from  the  time  of  its  earliest  settlement.  We  have  seen 
how  this  was  accomplished  with  little  capital  except  that 
which  was  taken  from  the  soil.  The  fortunate  results 
may  now  be  observed  in  an  industrial  life  which  is  re- 
markably diversified  for  a  community  so  new  and  remote. 

Very  much  the  larger  portion  of  the  population  may  be 
seen  in  a  railroad  ride  of  two  hours,  from  Provo  through 
Salt  Lake  City  to  Ogden.  This  ride  takes  the  traveller 
through  Utah,  Salt  Lake,  and  Weber  valleys,  which  were 
the  first  to  be  reclaimed,  and  must  always  contain  the 
densest  population.  The  original  advantage  of  this  now 
splendid  district  was  its  abundant  water  supply,  flowing 
in  numerous  streams  from  high  mountains  near  at  hand. 
To  this  advantage  later  development  added  the  presence 
of  important  railroad  systems  and  the  proximity  of  rich 
mines  of  precious  metals.  The  growth  of  other  portions 
of  the  State,  which  must  be  large  and  constant,  can  only 
confirm  the  supremacy  of  the  communities  which  have 
grown  up  near  the  shores  of  the  Great  Salt  Lake.  These 
are  alike  the  commercial,  political,  and  religious  centres 
of  Utah,  to  which  all  the  sources  of  material  wealth  must 
be  tributary. 

The  natural  resources  of  Utah,  as  in  the  case  of  all  the 
States  of  the  mountain  region,  are  wonderfully  diverse, 
though  in  the  infancy  of  development.  The  annual  out- 
put of  gold,  silver,  copper,  and  lead  is  now  about  ten 
million  dollars,  and  is  constantly  increasing.  The  min- 
ing industry  is  thus  a  large  contributor  to  local  wealth, 
supplying  employment  to  thousands  of  laborers,  fumish- 
M  177 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  ARID   AMERICA 

ing  a  home  market  for  the  products  of  the  farms,  and 
giving  constant  encouragement  to  the  extension  of  the 
railroad  system.  The  work  of  discovery  and  develop- 
ment in  new  districts  steadily  progresses,  and  the  eco- 
nomic value  of  mineral  resources  must  grow  with  every 
passing  year.  Utah  is  somewhat  deficient  in  forests 
suitable  for  timber,  but  is  abundantly  endowed  with  coal, 
iron,  and  water-power,  which  are  the  raw  materials  of 
manufacture.  The  development  of  water-power  in  con- 
nection with  electricity  has  begun  in  earnest  and  will  be 
a  factor  of  high  importance  in  the  future.  This  is  ac- 
complished by  damming  streams  which  flow  through 
mountain  canyons  in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of 
large  towns.  This  requires  the  transmission  of  electric- 
ity for  a  distance  of  only  a  few  miles,  owing  to  the  fortu- 
nate natural  conditions.  The  State  is  also  rich  in  fine 
building  stone,  which  includes  beautiful  marble  and 
onyx. 

The  climate  of  Utah  is  that  of  the  milder  temperate 
zone,  and  during  large  portions  of  the  year  is  thoroughly 
delightful.  Ploughing  begins  earlier  than  in  eastern  lo- 
calities of  similar  latitude.  The  spring  days  are  showery 
and  windy,  but  the  first  warm  breath  of  approaching 
summer  is  usually  felt  by  the  last  of  April.  From  May 
until  November  there  is  little  rain.  The  thermometer 
climbs  high  during  the  summer  days,  but  the  heat  is  not 
oppressive,  owing  to  the  dryness  of  the  air.  Mountain- 
breezes,  sweeping  down  through  the  numerous  canyons, 
make  the  nights  delightfully  cool.  In  Utah  it  is  the 
custom  to  run  irrigation  waters  through  the  streets  of 
cities  and  towns  during  the  summer,  and  the  music  of 
these  numerous  babbling  streams  is  a  pleasant  feature 

178 


THE  PLEASANT  LAND  OF  UTAH 

of  the  country,  and  apparently  of  considerable  effect  in 
mitigating  the  heat.  The  long  autumn,  extending  fre- 
quently into  December,  is  the  most  charming  season  of 
the  year.  The  winter  is  usually  brief,  but  accompanied 
by  considerable  snow  even  in  the  valleys  and  a  very 
heavy  precipitation  in  the  surrounding  mountains.  On 
still  nights  the  thermometer  sometimes  goes  well  below 
zero.  The  extreme  southern  portion  of  the  State,  loc- 
ally known  as  "  Dixie,"  is  much  milder,  indeed  verg- 
ing upon  the  semi-tropical,  and  permitting  the  culture 
of  figs,  almonds,  and  English  walnuts. 

The  agricultural  industry  of  Utah  presents  some  odd 
contradictions.  It  is  more  diversified,  and  therefore 
more  completely  self-sustaining,  than  that  of  any  other 
western  State.  Farms  are  smaller  and  less  incumbered 
with  mortgages,  and  the  people  may  be  said  to  live  gen- 
erally in  easier  circumstances  than  the  occupants  of  the 
soil  in  any  other  part  of  the  United  States. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  not  here  that  we  find  the  best 
methods  of  irrigation  and  cultivation,  nor  of  packing  and 
marketing  the  crops.  The  high  intelligence  and  persis- 
tent effort  which  placed  certain  communities  in  Colorado 
and  California  at  the  head  of  the  list  in  their  respective 
lines  of  production  are  wanting  in  Utah.  The  fruit  pos- 
sibilities of  the  country  have  been  especially  neglected 
until  recently,  so  that  newly  settled  portions  of  Idaho 
have  easily  surpassed  Utah  localities  which  had  the  ad- 
vantage of  more  than  a  generation  in  time.  Of  late 
years  there  has  been  a  marked  improvement,  resulting 
from  a  State  Board  of  Horticulture,  from  the  influence 
of  the  Agricultural  College  at  Logan,  and  from  the  in- 
fusion of  a  considerable  element  of  new  settlers. 

179 


THE   CONQTJEST   OF   AEID   AMEKICA 

Over  half  a  million  acres  of  irrigated  land  are  in  actual 
cultivation,  while  nearly  twice  that  number  are  under 
canals  now  completed  or  in  process  of  construction. 
Nearly  one  hundred  thousand  acres  are  cultivated  in 
grain  crops  without  irrigation.  These  are  mostly  sit- 
uated north  of  the  Great  Salt  Lake,  where  the  rainfall 
is  heaviest.  The  total  amount  of  cultivated  land  is, 
however,  only  about  one  per  cent,  of  the  area  of  the 
State.  According  to  the  best  local  authorities,  some- 
thing like  six  times  as  much  land  as  is  now  irrigated 
can  be  brought  under  cultivation  by  these  methods  when 
the  water  supply  is  utilized.  Here  is  a  large  field  for 
the  growth  of  population. 

The  territory  available  for  settlement  is  well  dis- 
tributed throughout  the  State.  The  country  immedi- 
ately surrounding  the  three  large  towns  of  Ogden,  Salt 
Lake,  and  Provo  is  compactly  settled,  yet  better  meth- 
ods of  utilizing  the  water  supply  will  enlarge  the  area  of 
cultivation  even  in  those  districts.  The  beautiful  coun- 
try lying  immediately  north  of  Great  Salt  Lake,  and 
watered  by  one  of  the  largest  irrigation  systems  in  the 
West,  is  still  largely  open  to  settlement.  Here  the  fruit 
industry  is  rapidly  developing  in  connection  with  gen- 
eral farming  and  stock-raising.  In  this  locality  unim- 
proved lands  sell  for  prices  ranging  from  thirty  to  fifty 
dollars  per  acre,  while  the  annual  water  -  rental  is  two 
dollars  and  a  half  per  acre.  .  The  construction  of  new 
irrigation  systems  in  the  large  deserts  south  of  the  lake, 
in  central  Utah,  has  been  actively  carried  on  during  the 
past  five  years.  Here  much  government  land  is  open  to 
entry,  but  the  settler  must  purchase  water-rights  from 
canal  companies.     This  item  of  cost  should  be  added  to 

180 


o 

A    > 

o  3 


25    M 


THE  PLEASANT    LAND  OF  UTAH 

the  price  of  the  land.  In  this  locality  unimproved  lands 
with  water  cost  from  ten  to  thirty  dollars  per  acre.  The 
raising  of  grain  and  hay  is  profitable  because  of  the  de- 
mand which  the  stock  industry  furnishes  for  these  prod- 
ucts, while  the  culture  of  peaches,  apricots,  apples,  and 
prunes  seems  promising.  These  fruits  have  been  raised 
successfully  for  forty  years  in  the  more  sheltered  valleys 
and  foct-hills  of  central  Utah,  and  the  later  orchards  are 
being  gradually  extended  farther  out  upon  the  desert. 

For  years  settlers,  miners,  and  speculators  have  looked 
with  eager  eyes  to  the  Uinta  country,  surrounded  by  the 
mountains  of  that  name  and  lying  directly  east  of  Salt 
Lake  City.  Here  a  great  Indian  reservation  has  been 
thrown  open  to  settlement.  The  opening  of  this  new 
district  was  the  occasion  of  a  rush  of  land-hungry  people, 
in  which  the  Mormons  took  a  conspicuous  part.  They 
will  undoubtedly  apply  their  well-known  successful  meth- 
ods of  colonization  in  such  localities  as  they  are  able  to 
control.  Settlers  will  be  organized  into  companies  con- 
structing their  own  canals  by  combined  labor  and  divid- 
ing the  farms  and  village  lots  under  an  equitable  arrange- 
ment. The  Uinta  country  is  rich,  not  only  in  agri- 
cultural land,  but  in  minerals,  timber,  building  stone, 
asphalt,  and  other  useful  resources.  Its  value  has  long 
been  appreciated,  but  railroad  facilities  were  lacking. 
These  will  now  be  supplied  by  a  new  line  building  west 
from  Denver.  Several  towns  are  certain  to  spring  up 
and  attain  importance  at  an  early  day.  The  deserts  of 
eastern  Utah  within  reach  of  the  Green  Eiver,  and  in 
southern  Utah  in  the  neighborhoods  of  the  Colorado  and 
Virgin  Rivers,  have  but  begun  to  feel  the  influence  of 

181 


THE   CONQUEST   OF   ARID  AMERICA 

modern  enterprise.  The  costly  works  necessary  to  their 
reclamation  will  doubtless  come  as  the  pressure  of  settle- 
ment increases. 

Utah's  pre-eminence  in  the  land  of  irrigation  is  due  to 
historical  considerations  rather  than  to  the  excellence  of 
its  canal  systems  or  to  the  superiority  of  its  laws  and 
customs.  In  the  latter  respect  it  is  distinctly  disappoint- 
ing. The  pioneers  turned  the  water  from  the  most  con- 
venient streams  by  the  crudest  devices,  and  with  no 
thought  for  any  grand  and  enduring  scheme  of  engineer- 
ing. Canals  were  often  duplicated  many  times  over  in  a 
single  valley,  wasting  precious  water,  injuring  the  soil, 
and  unnecessarily  restricting  the  area  of  settlement.  The 
evils  of  the  irrigation  system  hastily  constructed  by  the 
pioneers  are  now  seen  and  felt ;  yet  the  early  appropri- 
ators  of  the  mountain  streams  are  so  tenacious  of  what 
they  consider  their  rights  as  to  render  the  reform  of  the 
laws,  the  reconstruction  of  canals,  and  the  readjustment 
of  irrigation  customs  to  meet  the  conditions  imposed  by 
the  pressure  of  population,  extremely  difficult.  Efforts 
to  establish  a  plan  of  State  supervision  which  would  pro- 
vide for  the  measuring  of  water  and  its  just  apportion- 
ment among  irrigators — a  system  which  is  the  first  and 
last  essential  of  peace  and  progress  in  an  arid  land — have 
been  repeatedly  frustrated  by  the  unreasoning  jealousy 
of  the  older  settlers.  In  recent  years,  however,  this  oppo- 
sition has  yielded  to  higher  conceptions  and  Utah  now 
has  a  good  administrative  system  which  is  gradually 
reconstructing  the  basis  of  its  water  rights. 

For  fully  forty  years  Utah  irrigation  was  held  in  the 
hands  of  small  local  companies  composed  exclusively  of 
the  land-owners.    Works  were  built  by  the  common  labor 

182 


THE    PLEASANT    LAND    OF   UTAH 

of  the  community,  and  the  repairs  and  improvements 
made  in  the  same  way.  The  first  important  departure 
from  this  policy  came  with  the  construction  of  the  bold 
and  expensive  canals  of  the  Bear  Kiver  Irrigation  Com- 
pany, which  have  reclaimed  a  large  area  lying  between 
the  Great  Salt  Lake  and  the  Idaho  boundary.  These 
works  also  supply  domestic  water  to  the  city  of  Ogdeu 
and  furnish  power  for  electrical  purposes.  The  Bear 
river  canal  is  one  of  the  most  notable  works  of  en- 
gineering in  the  United  States,  ranking  at  least  second, 
if  not  first,  among  irrigation  systems  in  this  respect. 
Not  far  from  two  million  dollars  of  eastern  and  foreign 
capital  is  invested  in  the  enterprise.  The  work  ex- 
hibits almost  every  phase  of  irrigation — engineering, 
including  canals  cut  into  solid  canyon  walls,  tun- 
nelled through  mountain  sides,  as  well  as  iron  flumes 
and  notable  diverting  dams.  Other  private  water  sys- 
tems followed  the  Bear  river  development.  The  most 
important  of  these  are  the  storage  enterprises  at 
Mount  Nebo  and  in  the  neighborhood  of  Sevier  lake. 
Both  of  these  utilize  the  flood  waters  of  the  Sevier 
river,  which  is  one  of  the  largest  streams  in  the 
State. 

No  other  community  in  the  West  will  deal  with  more 
interesting  irrigation  problems  in  the  future  than  Utah. 
The  conflicts  between  the  policies  of  public  and  private 
ownership  cannot  be  avoided,  since  both  are  represented 
in  systems  which  lie  side  by  side.  In  districts  where 
settlement  is  furthest  advanced  and  canal  systems  the 
oldest,  the  crying  necessity  for  the  reconstruction  of 
works  and  the  application  of  a  rigid  public  supervision 
must  soon  be  answered.     Coincident  with  the  settle- 

183 


THE   CONQUEST  OF  ARID  AMERICA 

ment  of  these  questions  will  be  the  gradual  evolution  of 
better  agricultural  and  horticultural  methods. 

The  construction  of  the  San  Pedro,  Los  Angeles  & 
Salt  Lake  Railroad,  familiarly  known  as  "the  Clark 
Road/'  is  the  most  important  event  in  Utah  history  since 
the  building  of  the  Union  Pacific  system.  It  will  open 
a  large  mineral,  agricultural,  and  stock  region  south  of 
Salt  Lake  to  rapid  development.  But  its  influence  will 
be  much  more  than  local,  for  it  makes  a  long  desired  con- 
nection between  the  intermountain  region  and  the  coast 
of  southern  California.  It  would  be  difficult  to  imagine 
a  more  perfect  interchange  of  natural  products  than  that 
which  is  now  feasible  by  means  of  this  line.  The  semi- 
tropical  regions  of  the  south  need  the  variety  of  things 
which  are  produced  in  the  higher  altitudes  and  colder 
climate  of  the  north.  There  will  also  be  a  natural  inter- 
change of  people  between  the  two  localities,  the  northern- 
ers seeking  California  in  winter  and  the  southerners 
availing  themselves  of  the  mountain  resorts  of  Utah, 
Colorado,  Idaho,  and  Montana,  in  the  summer  season. 

Enormous  improvements  in  the  Central  Pacific  and 
Union  Pacific  system,  including  the  construction  of  the 
celebrated  Lucin  Cut-off  across  Great  Salt  Lake,  occurred 
almost  simultaneously  with  the  construction  of  Senator 
Clark's  road  to  Southern  California. 


184 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE   CRUDE  STRENGTH  OF  IDAHO 

Two  travellers  crossing  Idaho  on  the  same  day,  one  by 
the  Northern  Pacific  and  the  other  by  the  Oregon  Short 
Line,  would  receive  quite  opposite  impressions  of  the 
country.  The  one  who  had  traversed  its  northern  end 
would  think  of  Idaho  as  a  land  of  dense  forests  mir- 
rored in  the  surfaces  of  beautiful  lakes,  of  narrow  val- 
leys presenting  but  meagre  scope  for  agriculture,  of 
abundant  verdure,  and  of  Alpine  scenery.  These  condi- 
tions suggest  nothing  except  the  lumber-camp,  the  mine, 
and  the  stock-range. 

The  traveller  who  crossed  the  southern  part  of  the 
State,  on  the  other  hand,  would  receive  the  impression 
of  an  arid  land,  with  wide  stretches  of  valley  and  plain 
covered  with  wild  grasses  or  sage-brush,  alternating  with 
curious  formations  of  rock  and  lava.  This  traveller 
would  understand  how  a  large  agricultural  population 
may  be  maintained  by  turning  the  abundant  water  of  the 
streams  upon  the  rich  valley  soils.  Both  of  these  im- 
pressions of  the  resources  of  the  great  inland  State  of 
the  Pacific  Northwest  would  be  true,  but  either  of  them 
taken  alone,  as  is  often  done  by  travellers,  would  be 
quite  inadequate.  The  fact  is  that  Idaho,  perhaps  even 
more  than  other  localities  in  the  Far  West,  presents  a 

185 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  ARID   AMERICA 

marvellous  diversity  of  soil,  of  climate,  and  of  natural 
endowments.  This  diversity  must  necessarily  mark  its 
future  industrial  life  and  be  reflected  in  the  social  side 
of  its  civilization. 

The  first  important  item  in  the  material  wealth  of 
Idaho  is  its  water  supply.  Along  its  eastern  boundary 
nature  has  piled  up  towering  mountain-ranges,  which  re- 
ceive an  enormous  snowfall.  These  mountains  are  cov- 
ered with  forests,  ranking  among  the  most  magnificent 
in  the  world,  which  treasure  the  snow  within  their  som- 
bre depths  until  the  warm  weather  gradually  sends  it 
down  to  streams  which  reach  out  through  hundreds  of 
miles  of  lower  valleys.  The  great  river  of  Idaho  is  the 
Snake,  which  deserves  a  better  name  in  spite  of  its  tortu- 
ous meanderings.  This  is  the  largest  tributary  of  the 
ColQmbia,and  drains  a  vast  water-shed,  beginning  in  the 
Yellowstone  Park  of  Wyoming  and  including  all  of 
southern  and  much  of  western  Idaho  with  eastern  Ore- 
gon and  Washington.  Along  its  course  it  receives  nu- 
merous minor  streams  which  drain  interior  mountain  sys- 
tems. The  Snake  is  nearly  one  thousand  miles  long  and 
so  deep  that  in  some  places  soundings  of  two  hundred 
and  forty  feet  have  failed  to  find  the  bottom.  While 
incalculably  valuable  for  irrigation,  this  is  by  no  means 
its  only  utility.  It  is  navigable  for  one  hundred  and  fifty 
miles  above  its  junction  with  Clark's  Fork  in  the  north- 
ern part  of  the  State,  and  may  sometime  furnish  a 
water  route  to  the  Pacific  Ocean  through  the  Columbia. 
It  also  has  immense  possibilities  in  the  way  of  power, 
which  are  now  being  rapidly  developed  for  the  production 
of  electricity,  and  to  furnish  light,  heat,  and  power  to  a 
number  of  growing  towns. 

186 


THE  CRUDE  STRENGTH  OF  IDAHO 

The  most  marvellous  of  these  water-powers  is  furnished 
by  the  Great  Shoshone  Falls,  in  the  south-central  por- 
tion of  the  State.  Here  is  a  waterfall  scarcely  inferior 
in  power  and  grandeur  to  Niagara,  and,  like  the  latter, 
destined  to  be  an  important  economic  factor  in  the  re- 
gion within  its  reach.  The  abundant  water  supply  is 
by  no  means  limited  to  the  splendid  valleys  in  the 
southern  part  of  the  State.  It  is  found  in  hundreds 
of  mountain  streams  throughout  the  central  portion,  and, 
in  the  narrow  district  which  tapers  northward  to  the  Brit- 
ish Columbia  line,  is  so  marked  a  feature  of  the  land- 
scape as  to  impress  the  most  casual  observer.  Here 
Clark's  Fork  of  the  Columbia,  draining  the  Bitter  Root 
mountains  in  western  Montana,  is  a  stream  of  noble 
proportions.  Lakes  Pend  Oreille  and  Coeur  d'Alene 
are  among  the  most  notable  of  inland  waters,  both  in 
beauty  and  extent.  But  these  northern  etreams  will  not 
be  used  extensively  for  irrigation,  as  there  is  consider- 
able rainfall  and  comparatively  little  agricultural  land. 
They  are  valuable,  however,  in  connection  with  mining, 
lumbering,  and  water-power. 

The  forest  area  of  Idaho  includes  seven  million  acres, 
and  the  principal  native  trees  are  fir,  spruce  of  the 
white,  red,  and  black  varieties,  scrub  oak,  yellow  and 
white  pine,  mountain  mahogany,  juniper,  tamarack, 
birch,  Cottonwood,  alder,  and  willow.  Some  of  the 
large  forest  regions,  notably  that  of  the  Pend  d'Oreille 
in  the  north,  are  almost  unexplored,  and  constitute  the 
wildest  parts  of  the  continent.  Naturally,  a  country  so 
well  wooded  and  watered  is  the  home  of  fish  and  game 
of  the  rarest  kinds.  The  mineral  resources  are  well  dis- 
tributed and  diversified  to  the  last  degree.     The  annual 

187 


THE   CONQUEST  OF  ABID  AMERICA 

output  of  precious  metals  now  amounts  to  over  twenty- 
one  millions.  Gold  was  discovered  in  1860  and  mining 
is  still  the  industry  of  first  importance.  The  popular  ex- 
citement over  the  Thunder  Mountain  mines  in  1901  is 
still  remembered.  The  chief  products  are  gold,  silver, 
copper,  and  lead,  and  there  are  reduction  works  for  the 
treatment  of  these  ores  employing  a  large  population. 
Base  metals,  precious  stones,  and  building  materials,  in- 
cluding fine  marble,  exist  in  abundance. 

Idaho  lies  wholly  in  the  temperate  zone,  yet  its  climate 
presents  a  great  variety  of  features.  In  the  larger  por- 
tion of  its  territory,  which  consists  of  mountains  and 
elevated  valleys,  the  winter  is  a  season  of  considerable 
severity.  Here  the  thermometer  registers  far  below 
zero,  though  the  days  are  rendered  comfortable  by  a  dry 
atmosphere  and  abundant  sunshine. 

Southern  and  western  Idaho  differ  materially  from  the 
eastern,  central,  and  northern  districts.  The  altitude 
ranges  from  two  thousand  to  four  thousand  feet.  While 
there  are  occasional  instances  of  a  temperature  twelve 
degrees  below  zero,  the  winter  in  this  part  of  the  State 
is  really  short  and  mild,  being  influenced  by  the  Chinook 
winds,  which  make  their  way  from  the  Pacific  over  a 
distance  of  five  hundred  miles.  Spring  opens  early  and 
is  apt  to  be  windy.  The  summer  temperature  is  high, 
though  the  nights  are  invariably  cool.  The  almost  com- 
plete absence  of  rain  between  spring  and  late  autumn 
makes  the  best  conditions  for  irrigation,  though  it  also 
involves  dry  roads  and  clouds  of  dust  when  the  wind  is 
high. 

Of  the  healthf  ulness  of  Idaho,  it  is  enough  to  say  that 
188 


THE  CRUDE  STRENGTH  OF  IDAHO 

it  shows  the  smallest  percentage  of  deaths  of  any  State 
or  Territory  in  the  Union.  This  is  not  only  the  official 
record  of  the  population  as  a  whole,  but  it  is  the  showing 
of  the  Army  statistics,  which  furnish  a  better  test,  be- 
cause the  conditions  of  life  in  that  service  are  remarkably 
even  throughout  the  country. 

Idaho  has  been  called  "  the  Baby  State,"  and  in  certain 
respects  it  seems  like  a  lusty  infant,  or  perhaps  now 
more  like  an  adolescent  youth,  whose  character  is  just 
forming.  Already  there  have  been  four  periods  in  its 
history.  The  first  was  that  of  the  explorer,  when  Lewis 
and  Clark,  and  later  Bonneville,  came  to  look  over  the 
country  and  report  upon  its  possibilities.  The  second  was 
that  of  the  trapper,  when  the  Hudson  Bay  Company  es- 
tablished its  supremacy  after  a  brief  struggle  with  Ameri- 
can hunters.  The  third  was  that  of  the  missionary,  who 
as  early  as  1836  established  the  first  feeble  beginnings 
of  civilization,  and  then  pushed  westward  for  the  con- 
quest of  Oregon.  The  fourth  was  that  of  the  miner,  who 
gained  a  lasting  foothold  among  the  mountains  and 
along  the  streams.  The  fifth  era  is  now  in  progress,  and 
has  been,  after  a  fashion,  since  the  early  sixties.  This 
is  the  era  of  agricultural  settlement  and  of  town-building. 
It  amounted  to  little  until  the  railroads  were  built  across 
the  northern  and  southern  extremities  of  the  State,  and 
until  enterprise  was  attracted  by  the  possibilities  of  irri- 
gation. Agriculture  is  still  second  in  importance  to 
mining,  and  is  hard  pressed  by  stock  raising;  but  it  is  a 
vigorous  and  growing  interest. 

With  an  area  larger  than  N"ew  York  and  Maine  com- 
bined, and  almost  equal  to  the  combined  area  of  Pennsyl- 

189 


THE  CONQUEST  OF  ARID  AMERICA 

vania  and  Ohio,  Idaho  had  a  population  of  only  161,772 
by  the  last  census,  although  it  had  increased  ninety-one 
per  cent,  between  1890  and  1900,  and  is  still  rapidly 
growing.  The  State  has  twenty-one  thousand  farms, 
covering  five  million  acres,  and  worth  two  hundred  mil- 
lion dollars.  The  astonishing  fertility  of  the  soil  is 
shown  by  the  fact  that  the  average  value  of  the  yield  per 
acre  of  agricultural  products  in  Idaho  is  nearly  double 
that  for  the  whole  United  States.  The  grand  prize  for 
the  best  display  of  agricultural  products  at  the  Louisiana 
Purchase  Exposition  in  1904,  was  awarded  to  Idaho,  be- 
sides seventeen  gold  medals,  fourteen  silver  medals,  and 
twenty-two  bronze  medals,  to  individual  exhibitors  from 
the  State.  The  chief  agricultural  product  is  alfalfa, 
which  yields  from  five  to  nine  tons  per  acre  on  irrigated 
land.  Red  clover  is  also  a  favorite  crop,  and  wheat, 
oats,  barley,  and  potatoes  are  largely  cultivated  and  yield 
good  returns.  The  cultivation  of  sugar  beets  has  made 
great  progress  since  1903,  when  the  first  large  factory 
was  erected  at  Idaho  Falls.  Since  then,  three  more 
factories  have  been  built,  and  the  industry  is  now  firmly 
established  and  will  unquestionably  continue  to  grow  in 
volume  and  importance. 

The  horticultural  interests  of  Idaho  promise  soon  to 
take  a  place  of  leading  importance.  Apples,  pears,  and 
prunes  are  most  raised,  in  the  order  named.  Six  million 
fruit  trees,  half  in  bearing,  and  half  of  them  apples, 
cover  fifty  thousand  acres  of  orchards.  Peaches,  plums, 
apricots,  nectarines,  cherries,  and  grapes  also  flourish. 
The  solid  silver  loving-cup  given  by  Senator  William  A. 
Clark,  to  be  awarded  by  the  Eleventh  National  Irrigation 

190 


THE  CRUDE  STRENGTH  OF  IDAHO 

Congress  at  Ogden,  Utah,  in  1903,  for  the  best  dis- 
play of  irrigation-grown  fruits,  was  won  by  an  exhibit 
from  the  New  Plymouth  Colony,  in  the  Payette  Valley, 
Idaho.  At  the  Louisiana  Purchase  Exposition,  the  gold 
medal  for  the  best  display  of  fruits  was  won  by  Idaho, 
besides  many  awards  to  individual  exhibitors.  The 
prunes  of  Idaho  are  famous,  and  won  the  first  prize  at 
the  Columbian  Exposition,  Chicago,  in  1893.  The  apple 
crop  is  of  excellent  quality  and  very  profitable.  Eastern 
experts  noted  with  surprise  at  Chicago  that  the  Yellow 
Newton  Pippins  were  "twice  as  large  as  the  same  apple 
grown  in  the  Hudson  River  Valley  "  of  New  York. 

The  greatest  irrigation  development  in  Idaho  hereto- 
fore has  occurred  in  the  upper  Snake  River  Valley.  The 
sixteen  southern  counties  have  a  total  of  3577  miles  of 
canals  and  ditches,  costing  nearly  ten  million  dollars  and 
covering  2,108,095  acres,  of  which  835,115  are  cultivated. 
The  large  canals  are  owned  by  private  companies  and 
usually  represent  Eastern  capital. 

The  most  notable  colony  yet  made  on  the  irrigated 
lands  of  Idaho  is  that  of  New  Plymouth,  in  the  Payette 
Valley,  twelve  miles  from  the  town  of  Payette.  This 
colony,  organized  in  the  spring  of  1895  by  William  E. 
Smythe  and  Benjamin  P.  Shawhan,  was  intended  to 
represent  a  high  social  and  industrial  ideal.  The  initial 
work  of  enlisting  settlers  and  public  interest  for  the 
undertaking  was  done  in  Boston,  with  the  aid  of  Dr. 
Edward  Everett  Hale  and  other  prominent  men,  but  most 
of  the  actual  colonists  were  from  Chicago  and  the  Middle 
West.  The  pioneers  of  New  Plymouth,  who  represented 
a  rather  unusual  quality  of  settlers,  were  drawn  princi- 

191 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  ARID  AMERICA 

pally  from  urban  business  and  professional  life,  yet 
entered  enthusiastically  and  successfully  upon  the  work 
of  making  homes  on  sage-brush  land  twelve  miles  from  a 
railroad,  in  a  remote  and  undeveloped  part  of  the  West. 

The  Plymouth  industrial  programme  aimed  at  com- 
plete economic  independence  of  the  people  by  the  simple 
method  of  producing  the  variety  of  things  consumed,  on 
small,  diversified  farms;  of  having  surplus  products, 
principally  fruit,  for  sale  in  home  and  Eastern  markets; 
and  by  combining  the  capital  of  the  settlers,  by  incor- 
poration of  a  stock-company,  to  own  and  develop  the 
town-site,  and  to  erect  and  operate  simple  industries  re- 
quired in  connection  with  the  products  of  the  soil.  On 
the  social  side,  the  plan  aimed  to  give  these  farmers  the 
best  advantages  of  town  life,  or  at  least  of  neighborhood 
association.  This  was  accomplished  by  assembling  the 
houses  in  a  central  village,  laid  out,  in  accordance  with  a 
beautiful  plan,  with  residences  grouped  on  an  outside 
circle  touching  the  farms  at  all  points.  This  plan 
brought  the  settlers  close  together  on  acre-lots — "home- 
acres^^ — ^thus  preventing  isolation,  and  giving  them 
the  benefit  of  school,  church,  post-oflSce,  store,  library, 
and  entertainments. 

The  Plymouth  settlers  have  been  contented  and  pros- 
perous from  the  first,  and  have  had  less  than  the  usual 
share  of  early  trials  and  disappointments.  They  testify 
that  the  social  advantages  of  the  colony  plan,  as  com- 
pared with  the  drawbacks  of  individual  and  isolated 
settlement,  are  alone  sufficient  to  warrant  its  use.  Avail- 
ing themselves  of  a  favorable  opportunity,  they  acquired 
the  irrigation  system  and  other  valuable  property  by 

192 


THE  CRUDE  STRENGTH  OF  IDAHO 

purchase  from  the  Eastern  bondholders,  on  terms  which 
went  far  to  enrich  them  as  a  community. 

A  great  stimulus  has  recently  been  given  to  the  re- 
clamation of  arid  lands,  especially  in  the  lower  Snake 
River  Valley,  by  the  operation  of  the  "  Carey  Act."  Al- 
ready a  third  of  a  million  acres  of  public  land  have  been 
withdrawn  from  settlement  and  turned  over  to  the  State 
Land  Board  for  reclamation  under  this  law.  The  Board 
has  entered  into  agreements  with  several  companies  for 
the  construction  of  irrigation  works,  to  redeem  tracts  of 
this  land  ranging  from  six  thousand  to  two  hundred  and 
forty-four  thousand  acres. 

Under  the  liberal  provisions  of  this  law,  the  Nation 
gives  the  land  to  the  State  on  condition  that  it  be  re- 
claimed, and  the  State  sells  it  to  actual  settlers  at  the 
nominal  price  of  fifty  cents  per  acre,  in  tracts  limited  to 
one  hundred  and  sixty  acres  for  each  settler,  on  condi- 
tions of  actual  residence  and  improvement  and  that  the 
settlers  shall  repay  the  construction  company  the  cost 
of  the  works.  This  cost  is  agreed  upon  in  advance  by 
the  State  Land  Board  and  the  construction  companies, 
and  ranges  from  ten  to  twenty-five  dollars  per  acre. 
Easy  terms  of  payment  are  arranged,  sometimes  as  much 
as  ten  years  time  being  allowed. 

The  most  important  project  under  the  ^'  Carey  Act " 
is  that  of  the  Twin  Falls  Land  &  Water  Company,  said  to 
be  the  largest  private  irrigation  enterprise  in  America. 
It  will  reclaim  two  hundred  and  forty-four  thousand 
acres  of  land  lying  south  of  the  Snake  River  and  thirty 
thousand  acres  on  its  north  side.  The  headworks  are 
at  Twin  Falls,  at  the  head  of  the  Grand  Canyon  of  the 
N  198 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  AKID  AMEEICA 

Snake  River,  where  the  new  town  of  Milner  has  sprung 
up.  The  main  canal  has  a  length  of  nearly  seventy  miles, 
and  ends  at  the  Canyon  of  the  Salmon  Eiver.  The 
"  Minidoka  Project/'  now  under  construction  by  the 
National  Reclamation  Service  and  elsewhere  described 
in  this  book,  is  situated  fifty  miles  up  stream  from  Twin 
Falls.  Work  on  the  Twin  Falls  project  was  begun  in 
March,  1903,  and  water  was  turned  into  the  canals  just 
two  years  later.  The  land  has  been  rapidly  taken  up 
and  crops  are  already  growing  under  the  canals.  The 
immense  dams  at  the  headworks  are  1900  feet  long, 
from  60  to  76  feet  high,  and  raise  the  normal  level  of 
the  river  forty-nine  feet.  The  gates  and  spillways,  con- 
structed in  the  rocky  islands  of  the  river,  are  marvels  of 
engineering  skill.  The  main  canal  is  80  feet  wide  on  the 
bottom,  112  feet  at  the  surface  of  the  water,  and  carries 
a  stream  10  feet  deep.  There  vnll  be  nearly  a  thousand 
miles  of  canals  and  laterals  in  the  system.  Gasoline 
launches  are  to  be  put  upon  the  main  canal  to  carry 
passengers  and  freight.  The  total  cost  of  the  works  will 
exceed  two  million  dollars. 

The  prices  of  land  in  Idaho  naturally  vary  greatly  with 
location  and  conditions.  Unimproved  and  unirrigated 
lands  can  be  had  at  nominal  prices.  Improved  lands 
without  water  bring  from  five  to  twenty  dollars  per  acre. 
Lands  reclaimed  under  the  "  Carey  Act "  cost,  with  a 
permanent  water  right,  from  ten  to  twenty-five  dollars. 
Where  the  reclamation  work  is  being  done  by  the  Govern- 
ment, the  cost  per  acre  is  estimated  at  twenty-six  dollars. 
Unimproved  lands  under  existing  private  canals  bring 
from  twenty  to  fifty  dollars  per  acre,  and  improved  irri- 

194 


THE  CKUDE  STRENGTH  OF  IDAHO 

gated  lands  are  worth  from  forty  to  two  hundred  dollars 
or  more. 

While  the  chief  agricultural  and  horticultural  districts 
of  the  State  lie  along  the  Snake  River  and  its  important 
tributaries,  the  mountains  of  central  Idaho  are  full  of 
picturesque,  well-watered  valleys,  in  which  settlement 
has  been  made  for  more  than  a  generation.  In  these  high 
altitudes,  however,  production  is  limited  to  hardy  crops 
and  runs  largely  to  hay  and  grain,  which  find  a  market  in 
the  surrounding  mining  and  lumbering  camps  and  stock 
ranches.  The  Nez  Perc^  Indian  Reservation  is  a  fertile 
and  promising  country,  though  the  Indians  have  been 
located  in  severalty  on  some  of  the  most  desirable  lands, 
which  would  otherwise  be  open  to  settlers.  A  consider- 
able locality  in  the  northern  part  of  the  State,  known  as 
*'  the  Palouse  Country,"  is  farmed  in  grain  without  irri- 
gation. The  same  is  true  of  the  Gammas  Prairie,  in  one 
of  the  central  counties.  But  Idaho  is  substantially  an 
arid  region  and  its  characteristic  institutions  are  grow- 
ing up  where  irrigation  has  been  supplied.  The  ultimate 
development  of  its  diversified  resources  will  give  it  a 
many-sided  economic  life. 

Each  of  the  early  sources  of  Idaho's  growth  left  its 
driftwood  along  the  slender  stream  of  the  State's  de- 
velopment. The  "old-timer"  is  an  influential  element 
in  its  citizenship.  Later  comers,  perhaps  forgetting  the 
distance  which  has  been  covered  since  the  days  of  the 
primeval  wilderness,  and,  in  their  impatience  for  prog- 
ress, inclined  to  belittle  the  hardy  heroism  which  made 
it  possible,  sometimes  complain  that  the  "old-timers" 
are  content  to  live  in  the  memory  of  "the  early  days" 

195 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  ARID  AMERICA 

while  contributing  little,  either  of  enthusiasm  or  capital, 
to  further  development.  The  obvious  truth  is  that  differ- 
ent classes  of  people  are  required  for  different  classes  of 
work.  If  the  men  who  filled  the  role  of  pioneers  are  not 
well  suited  by  tastes  and  temperament  to  solve  the  prob- 
lems involved  in  the  evolution  of  a  complex  industrial 
life,  it  is  doubtless  equally  true  that  the  element  which 
enters  enthusiastically  and  intelligently  upon  this  later 
work  would  not  have  dealt  as  successfully  with  the 
harsher  conditions  of  thirty-five  years  ago.  It  is  true, 
however,  that  there  are  two  well-defined  classes  in  the 
citizenship  of  the  Northwest,  and  that  they  represent 
different  ways  of  thinking.  The  steady  growth  of  popu- 
lation in  Idaho  has  already  given  the  supremacy  to  those 
who  are  trying  to  put  the  farm  in  place  of  the  desert,  to 
develop  the  best  methods  of  fruit-culture,  to  bring  the 
irrigation  system  under  rigid  public  supervision,  and  to 
establish  the  highest  standards  in  political  and  social 
life. 


196 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  GIANT  WASHINGTON 

Washington  is  one  of  the  big  States  of  the  West — big 
in  resources  and  potentialities — and  big  in  its  yearning 
for  the  surplus  man.  In  thinking  of  its  future,  it  is 
difficult  for  the  human  imagination  to  set  bounds  to  its 
development.  It  is  blest  in  the  possession  of  everything 
which  goes  to  the  making  of  a  complete  industrial,  social, 
and  political  organism.  Anywhere  else  than  in  the 
United  States  it  would  be  considered  amply  sufficient 
for  the  sustenance  of  a  nation.  Its  resources  are  wonder- 
ful alike  in  richness  and  in  variety.  Even  its  climate 
presents  as  many  diversities  as  the  entire  Atlantic  Coast 
Line,  from  Eastport  to  Savannah.  If  there  be  such  a 
thing  as  a  psychological  influence  arising  from  location 
and  from  proximity  to  the  seat  of  events,  and  affecting 
the  destiny  and  character  of  communities,  then  that  in- 
fluence is  operative  in  Washington. 

The  State  is  fortunate  not  only  in  having  a  strategic 
location  and  marvellous  natural  resources,  but  in  being 
able  to  command  the  interest  and  support  of  the  large 
capital  which  is  essential  to  enable  it  to  take  fullest  ad- 
vantage of  these  facts.  It  has  been  the  beneficiary  of 
the  most  daring  and  aggressive  railroad  enterprise  from 
the  beginning  of  its  development.  This  has  enabled  its 
principal  cities  promptly  to  become  the  commercial  cen- 

197 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  ARID  AMERICA 

tres  of  the  rich  agricultural,  mining,  and  timber  districts 
which  lie  behind  them.  The  sudden  birth  of  Alaska  as 
a  new  and  powerful  economic  quantity  found  Washing- 
ton able  to  respond  instantly  and  adequately  to  the  new 
demands.  The  opening  of  China  and  other  Oriental 
markets  to  American  products  again  found  Washington 
able  to  rise  to  its  opportunity,  this  time  with  a  fleet  of 
the  largest  freight  steamers  in  the  world.  If  mere  pos- 
session of  rare  natural  advantages  made  cities,  with 
thrifty,  growing  surroundings,  then  many  localities  now 
silent  and  stagnant  would  long  since  have  assumed  im- 
portance in  relation  to  the  commerce  of  the  world.  But 
natural  advantages  are  not  alone  sufficient — they  must 
be  quickened  into  life  and  productiveness  in  order  to 
count  largely  in  the  making  of  wealth  and  the  support 
of  communities.  Washington  owes  very  much  to  the 
men  of  daring  enterprise  and  enormous  financial  re- 
sources who  stretched  lines  of  steel  from  Puget  Sound 
to  the  Great  Lakes  and  who,  refusing  to  stop  at  the 
shore-line,  utilized  the  free  highway  of  the  sea  that  the 
markets  of  Alaska  and  the  Orient  might  be  opened  to  the 
trade  of  this  young  commonwealth. 

In  the  decade  covered  by  the  last  census,  Washington 
increased  its  population  forty-five  per  cent.,  notwithstand- 
ing the  fact  that  the  larger  portion  of  the  period  fell  in 
hard  times,  when  some  mushroom  cities  and  towns  actu- 
ally declined  with  the  recession  of  the  boom.  Its  present 
total  of  a  little  more  than  half  a  million  represents  a  mere 
squad  of  people  compared  with  the  vast  army  who  will 
ultimately  be  sustained  in  the  varied  industrial  life  of 
the  State.    That  is  to  say,  Washington  is  in  its  infancy 

198 


THE  GIANT  WASHINGTON 

and  must  inevitably  enjoy  constant  growth,  which  will 
accelerate  as  time  goes  on.  This  will  be  due  in  part  to 
its  own  natural  wealth  and  in  part  to  its  fortunate  loca- 
tion, which  makes  it  the  commercial  partner  of  Alaska, 
of  the  Orient,  and  of  Northwest  Canada  in  what  promises 
to  be  the  most  stirring  era  of  material  and  commercial 
development  which  the  world  has  ever  seen. 

Puget  Sound  is  one  of  Washington's  priceless  posses- 
sions. It  is  not  merely  a  harbor,  but  a  beautiful  inland 
sea,  sometimes,  and  not  inappropriately,  referred  to  as 
''the  American  Mediterranean."  Coal,  iron,  and  timber 
are  abundant,  and  the  shores  of  the  Sound  must  in  time 
be  lined  with  a  great  variety  of  the  most  substantial 
industries.  Those  already  well  established  include  the 
manufacture  of  timber  and  lumber  products,  of  flour  and 
grist  mill  products,  the  canning  and  preserving  of  fish, 
copper  smelting  and  refining,  the  manufacture  of  iron 
and  steel  products,  and  of  paper  and  wood  pulp.  Manu- 
facture is,  however,  only  in  its  initial  stages.  Its  future 
expansion,  with  the  attendant  growth  in  mercantile, 
banking,  and  professional  lines,  will  absorb  many  surplus 
men.  But  here,  as  in  all  the  other  new  States  of  the  Far 
West,  the  conquest  of  the  soil  will  make  the  largest  de- 
mand for  future  recruits. 

Like  Oregon,  Washington  presents  some  sharp  con- 
trasts in  climatic  conditions.  On  the  coast  the  rainfall 
is  excessive,  resulting  in  a  dense  growth  of  natural  vege- 
tation, including  valuable  forests.  The  extreme  eastern 
portion  of  the  State,  while  receiving  much  less  rain,  is 
also  able  to  produce  large  and  fairly  regular  crops  with- 
out artificial  moisture.     But  the  central  valleys,  lying 

190 


THE   CONQUEST   0¥  ARID  AMEEICA 

between  the  Cascade  and  Bitter  Eoot  Mountains,  belong 
distinctly  to  the  arid  region.  Here  irrigation  produces 
wonderful  results.  The  Yakima  Valley  is  the  leading  ex- 
ample of  irrigation  development  in  Washington.  It  is 
one  of  the  few  places  in  the  West  where  water  is  rela- 
tively more  abundant  than  land  and,  consequently,  where 
there  need  be  no  limitation  upon  growth  by  reason  of 
lack  of  moisture.  The  Columbia  River  flows  in  a  deeply 
eroded  channel  and  far  below  the  level  of  fertile  land 
which  could  be  made  immensely  productive  with  irriga- 
tion. It  will  be  the  labor  of  some  future  generation  to 
utilize  such  opportunities  when,  with  growing  density  of 
population  and  increase  of  land  value,  it  will  be  econo- 
mically profitable  to  do  many  things  which  are  now  im- 
practicable. In  the  meantime,  streams  which  may  be 
diverted  readily  and  cheaply  upon  the  rich  lands  of  the 
valleys  through  which  they  flow,  abundantly  demonstrate 
the  economic  significance  of  irrigation  in  Washington. 
And  chief  of  such  streams  is  the  Yakima. 

All  students  of  Western  resources  agree  that  the  irri- 
gated farms  of  central  and  eastern  Washington  are 
among  the  most  prosperous  to  be  found  in  the  West. 
They  are  such,  to  begin  with,  because  of  the  large  and 
regular  water  supply  which  has  already  been  noted. 
The  soil,  largely  of  volcanic  ash,  is  rich,  deep,  and  easily 
worked.  The  climate  and  range  of  products  are  most 
favorable,  while  the  home  markets  are  peculiarly  attract- 
ive. These  latter  include  not  merely  the  cities  of  Puget 
Sound,  with  their  growing  export  trade,  but  the  great 
mining  camps  of  British  Columbia,  Montana,  and  north- 
em  Idaho.    The  vegetables  and   small  fruits   of  the 

200 


THE  GIANT  WASHINGTON 

Yakima  country  are  only  about  three  weeks  later  than 
those  of  California.  These  early  products  command 
ready  sale  at  fancy  prices  in  the  mining  districts,  which 
are  reached  by  direct  lines  of  transportation.  From  the 
heart  of  Yakima  Valley  to  Rossland,  British  Columbia, 
is  but  eighteen  hours ;  to  the  Coeur  d'Alene  of  Idaho,  but 
twenty  hours;  to  the  great  mining  towns  of  Montana, 
but  twenty-four  hours.  This  matter  of  early  products, 
good  transportation  facilities,  and  large  home  markets 
is  a  consideration  of  highest  importance  to  settlers.  It 
enables  them  to  reap  early  and  large  reward  from  their 
labor,  since  crops  which  may  be  harvested  the  very  first 
season  after  planting  sell  at  good  prices  under  these 
favorable  conditions.  It  is  sometimes  possible  for  set- 
tlers to  pay  for  their  land  in  a  single  year.  In  the  absence 
of  any  one  of  the  three  factors  which  have  been  men- 
tioned, this  could  not  be  done. 

The  growth  of  population  in  the  irrigated  districts  has 
been  large  and  rapid  during  the  past  few  years.  This 
has  been  materially  influenced  by  the  Alaska  boom,  a 
circumstance  which  supplies  an  admirable  illustration  of 
the  peculiar  advantages  of  Washington.  In  his  speech 
at  Seattle,  President  Roosevelt  predicted  that  one  of  the 
largest  and  most  prosperous  American  States  would 
grow  up  in  Alaska.  Washington  is  the  nearest  agricul- 
tural field,  under  the  American  flag,  to  that  great  north- 
em  Territory  which  can  never  produce  most  of  the  food 
products  which  it  must  so  largely  consume.  This  fact 
has  enormous  significance  in  relation  to  the  future  pros- 
perity of  the  irrigated  valleys  of  the  Columbia  and  its 
tributaries.     Their  orchards  will  furnish  dried  fruits, 

201 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  AEID  AMEKICA 

their  gardens  vegetables,  their  alfalfa  fields  cattle,  pigs, 
and  their  products,  to  be  shipped  in  large  and  ever-in- 
creasing quantities  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  Frozen 
North.  The  peaches,  prunes,  and  apples  of  this  locality 
are  especially  fine  and  well  adapted,  when  dried  or  pre- 
served, to  the  demands  of  the  export  trade.  Dairying 
and  poultry-raising  are  also  profitably  carried  on  here. 
For  all  these  reasons,  it  is  perfectly  safe  to  predict  that 
many  people  will  find  attractive  opportunities  to  partici- 
pate in  the  making  of  irrigated  Washington. 

The  climate  of  this  extreme  northwestern  State  is  fre- 
quently misunderstood  at  the  East.  As  in  the  case  of 
California  and  Oregon,  so  also  in  Washington,  we  find 
that  northern  latitude  has  little  or  no  significance  in  re- 
lation to  summer  and  winter  temperature.  Indeed, 
Washington  rejoices  in  the  soubriquet,  '^  The  Evergreen 
State."  When  one  crosses  the  continent  by  the  most 
northern  transcontinental  route,  through  the  rigors  of 
the  Canadian  winter,  the  influence  of  the  Japanese  cur- 
rent and  its  famous  chinook  winds  is  felt  the  moment 
one  begins  to  pass  down  the  western  slope  of  the  Rockies, 
into  British  Columbia.  And  in  January  or  February 
one  need  not  be  surprised  to  look  upon  green  lawns  in 
Victoria  and  Vancouver.  The  Puget  Sound  region  must 
plead  guilty  to  one  climatic  indiscretion — it  drizzles  per- 
sistently, month  in  and  month  out,  during  the  winter 
season.  That  is,  it  drizzles  when  it  does  not  rain  "  right 
smart."  Gray  skies  are  characteristic  of  the  North  Pa- 
cific coastline.  On  the  other  hand,  nothing  could  be 
more  delightful  than  the  many  clear  and  beautiful  days 
which  the  Puget  Sound  region  does  enjoy  in  the  course 

202 


THE  GIANT  WASHINGTON 

of  a  year.  Then  the  waters  of  the  inland  sea  mirror  the 
blue  of  the  sky,  and  the  great  white  dome  of  Mount 
Rainier  (if  you  happen  to  be  in  Seattle;  otherwise, 
Mount  Tacoma),  with  the  lesser  heights  of  the  Olympic 
Mountains,  presents  a  picture  of  grandeur  which  may 
never  be  forgotten. 

The  larger  portion  of  the  State,  lying  east  of  the  Cas- 
cade Range,  presents  very  different  conditions.  There 
are  places  on  the  Columbia  River,  in  the  very  heart  of  the 
State,  where  the  rainfall  is  lighter  than  in  any  other  part 
of  the  United  States,  with  the  exception  of  the  south- 
western deserts,  in  Arizona  and  California.  Such  places 
enjoy  an  extraordinary  number  of  cloudless  days  and 
may  very  properly  be  classified  with  the  Land  of  Sun- 
shine. In  this  portion  of  the  State,  the  altitude  is  much 
higher  than  in  the  Sound  region  and  the  seasons  more 
sharply  differentiated.  Along  the  Columbia  plowing 
may  be  done  almost  continuously,  while  at  the  higher 
elevations  it  is  usually  suspended  from  the  middle  of 
November  to  the  middle  of  February. 

Eastern  Washington  produces  grain  without  irrigation 
and  is  a  famous  grazing  country.  This  is  due  probably 
as  much  to  the  remarkable  quality  of  the  soil  as  to  the 
rainfall,  which  is  not  extensive.  The  Great  Bend  region 
is  noted  for  its  wheat,  while  the  "  Horse  Heaven  "  country 
enjoys  a  renown  in  connection  with  the  grazing  industry 
which  is  sufficiently  indicated  by  its  name. 

The  principal  towns  in  the  irrigated  districts  of  Wash- 
ington are  North  Yakima,  Prosser,  Wenatchee,  Ellens- 
burg,  and  Walla  Walla.  Kennewick  and  Pasco,  on  op- 
posite sides  of  the  Columbia,  near  its  confluence  with  the 


THE  CONQUEST  OE  AKID  AMEKICA 

Yakiiaa  River,  are  growing  and  destined  to  be  of  much 
more  importance  in  the  future.  Spokane  is  the  attract- 
ive metropolis  of  eastern  Washington.  It  has  lived 
through  the  rise  and  fall  of  the  inevitable  boom  and  now 
rests  upon  most  substantial  foundations.  These  are  the 
industries  of  mining,  lumbering,  stock-raising,  and  grain- 
growing. 


204 


CHAPTER  VI 

OREGON  IN  TRANSITION 

Oregon  is  one  of  the  finest  of  all  Western  States  and 
one  which  is  not  appreciated  as  it  deserves  to  be.  Its 
population,  according  to  the  census  of  1900,  is  only  4.4 
persons  to  each  square  mile.  By  a  curious  coincidence,  it 
gained  almost  exactly  one  person  for  each  square  mile  of 
its  area  during  the  last  ten  years,  a  rate  of  growth  which 
would  require  many  centuries  to  enable  it  to  approach 
anything  like  the  limit  of  its  capacity  for  the  support  of 
population.  For  those  who  know  Oregon,  it  is  not  diffi- 
cult to  understand  the  backwardness  of  its  development. 

It  is  only  about  twenty  years  since  the  transcontinental 
railroad  reached  Portland,  and  the  chief  growth  of  the 
State  has  been  realized  since  that  event.  Existing  trans- 
portation facilities  are  entirely  inadequate.  They  per- 
mit Oregon  to  live;  they  do  not  enable  it  to  develop  its 
resources  as  they  ought  to  be  developed.  It  is  as  though 
Boston  had  one  railroad  up  the  coast  from  New  York 
and  another  transcontinental  line  from  the  West, — 
"only  this  and  nothing  more.*'  Instead,  the  group  of 
six  small  New  England  States  is  gridironed  with  steam 
and  electric  railroads,  penetrating  every  district  of  the 
slightest  interest  or  value  and  bringing  the  blood  of  trade 
through  a  thousand  ari:eries  to  the  commercial  heari;  at 
Boston.     With  such  facilities,  it  is  possible  to  develop 

205 


THE   CONQUEST   OF   AEID   AMERICA 

natural  resources  to  the  limit  and  to  maintain  a  dense 

population. 

Oregon  has  two  railroads,  one  running  north  and  south, 
the  other  east  and  west.  True,  Portland  also  enjoys  con- 
nections with  the  three  northern  railways  which  send 
spurs  down  from  Puget  Soimd ;  but  while  these  serve  the 
needs  of  through  traffic  to  some  extent,  they  do  not  assist 
the  internal  development  of  the  great  commonwealth. 
They  do  not  open  up  the  splendid  interior  valleys  to  set- 
tlement, nor  bring  the  products  of  the  mines,  farms, 
orchards,  and  ranges  to  the  seaboard.  They  do  not 
break  the  isolation  of  remote  districts  which  have  all  the 
raw  materials  for  an  active  and  prosperous  economic  life 
except  population  and  which  cannot  hope  to  have  popu- 
lation until  transportation  facilities  are  provided.  Thus 
the  passing  years  do  but  little  to  widen  the  foundation  of 
Oregon's  industrial  life,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that 
priceless  resources  stand  ready  and  waiting. 

Oregon  fell  an  early  and  easy  prey  to  the  spirit  of 
bonanza  farming.  Its  virgin  soil  bore  extraordinary 
crops  of  small  grain,  sometimes  yielding  three  or  four 
crops  as  the  reward  of  a  single  sowing.  Land  was  cheap 
and  easily  acquired.  There  was  plenty  of  room  for  big 
things,  including  big  farms.  Hence,  the  grain  industry 
took  firm  possession  of  the  beautiful  Willamette  Valley, 
of  the  Palouse  country,  and  of  other  favored  localities. 
The  single-crop  idea  was  widely  prevalent.  Here,  as 
always  and  everywhere,  it  ended  in  the  impoverishment 
alike  of  the  soil  and  of  the  farmers.  With  the  fall  of 
prices  and  the  pressure  of  indebtedness,  this  most  ex- 
tensive of  Oregon  industries  has  suffered  severely  until 

206 


OREGON   IN   THANSITION 

at  last  a  reaction  appears  to  have  come  in  favor  of 
smaller  farms  and  more  diversified  production. 

Lumbering,  mining,  and  manufacturing  have  been 
considerably  developed  and  are  capable  of  enormous 
expansion  in  the  future.  Manufacturing  is  hampered, 
however,  by  lack  of  transportation  facilities  and  of  cheap 
fuel,  and  by  the  limitations  of  the  market.  It  would 
seem  that  the  great  opportunities  of  Oregon  in  the  future 
lie  in  two  directions.  First,  in  the  way  of  internal  de- 
velopment, chiefly  by  the  irrigation  of  its  fertile  soil  and 
its  subdivision  into  a  multitude  of  small  estates ;  second, 
in  the  growth  of  its  export  trade  to  Alaska  and  the 
Orient.  As  to  the  first,  it  must  rely  in  part  upon  the 
National  Government  and  in  part  upon  its  own  energies, 
public  and  private.  The  second  opportunity  is  in  con- 
trol of  world-wide  forces  now  apparently  in  active  oper- 
ation. 

The  moist  coastline  of  Oregon  has  given  it  wide  repu- 
tation as  a  land  of  excessive  rainfall.  It  may,  therefore, 
seem  surprising  to  speak  of  this  State  as  needing  irriga- 
tion. The  fact  is  that  a  portion  of  it  receives  the  heaviest 
rainfall  in  the  United  States.  This  is  on  the  western 
slope  of  the  mountains  which  run  down  close  to  the  coast. 
The  western  third  of  the  State  is  sharply  divided  from 
the  eastern  two-thirds,  so  far  as  its  climatic  character  is 
concerned,  by  the  lofty  Cascade  Range.  This  intercepts 
the  moisture-laden  clouds  and  winds  from  the  Pacific, 
condensing  them  into  snow  and  leaving  the  larger  part  of 
Oregon  arid  or  semi-arid.  Thus  it  happens  that  no  other 
influence  would  go  so  far  to  quicken  and  to  broaden  the 
economic  life  of  Oregon  as  the  intelligent  application  of 

207 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  ARID  AMEEICA 

a  great  irrigation  policy.  It  would  effect  a  sweeping 
revolution  in  its  entire  industrial  character.  It  would 
arrest  the  downward  tendency  of  agriculture  by  stopping 
the  impoverishment  of  the  soil,  by  abolishing  the  evils  of 
the  single  crop,  and  by  fostering  that  spirit  of  co-oper- 
ation without  which  the  farmers  must  always  be  exploited 
for  the  benefit  of  those  who  furnish  their  supplies  and 
handle  their  products.  On  the  social  side,  it  would  give 
to  the  future  population  the  innumerable  advantages 
which  come  with  density  of  settlement  and  which  are 
wholly  unattainable  where  isolation  is  the  prevailing 
condition. 

Considered  from  every  standpoint,  irrigation  is  the 
golden  key  which  may  alone  unlock  the  doors  of  civil- 
ization to  wide  districts  in  Oregon,  particularly  east  of 
the  Cascade  Mountains.  The  logic  of  these  facts  is 
gradually  coming  to  be  realized  and  accepted.  New 
tendencies  are  beginning  to  show  in  the  life  of  the  State. 
If  not  yet  very  powerful,  they  are  growing.  There  can 
be  little  doubt  that  by  the  first  or  second  quarter  of  the 
present  century,  Oregon  will  present  an  entirely  different 
picture,  from  the  industrial  standpoint,  than  it  does  to- 
day. 

The  two  railroads  which  traverse  the  State  give  the 
traveller  a  fair  idea  of  its  character  as  a  whole.  Enter- 
ing from  the  south  and  journeying  north  to  Portland, 
one  rides  for  hours  through  the  charming  valleys  of  the 
Eogue  and  Willamette  rivers  in  the  midst  of  beautiful 
scenery  and  within  sight  of  pine  forests  and  fertile  farms. 
Of  late  years  the  orchards,  mostly  of  apples,  pears,  and 
prunes,  have  notably  increased,  while  in  the  vicinity  of 


OREGON   IN   TRANSITION 

many  thrifty  towns  there  are  grateful  signs  of  the 
growth  of  siiaall  homes.  The  climate  of  this  western 
valley,  which  lies  directly  north  of  the  Sacramento,  is 
not  very  different  from  that  of  California,  though  the 
variation  in  temperature  is  just  sufficient  to  destroy  the 
California  characteristic  in  certain  lines  of  production. 
Oranges  and  lemons  are  not  grown  commercially.  Many 
people  think  the  climate  superior  to  that  of  California 
because  it  offers  a  little  more  variety,  while  retaining  the 
mild  quality  which  is  so  attractive  and  healthful.  The 
conditions  are  extremely  favorable  for  the  development 
of  the  finest  sort  of  colonies  which,  with  irrigation  as  a 
foundation,  might  be  almost  wholly  self-sustaining  and 
have  a  large  surplus  product  to  dispose  of  in  the  home 
market.  This  is  true  for  the  reason  that  Oregon  as  a 
whole  by  no  means  produces  all  it  consumes,  and  that 
farmers  engaged  in  raising  grain  are  themselves  large 
patrons  of  those  who  take  varied  products  from  the  soil. 

Portland  is  a  thriving  commercial  and  manufacturing 
city,  as  well  as  a  financial,  social,  and  political  centre. 
Its  position  on  the  Willamette  near  its  confluence  with 
the  Columbia,  though  neariy  a  hundred  miles  inland, 
enables  it  to  enjoy  a  considerable  coastwise  and  foreign 
trade.  It  is  one  of  the  wealthiest  and  most  substantial 
of  American  towns  and,  both  in  business  and  residence 
districts,  presents  a  quality  of  solidity  that  is  unusual  in 
new  countries.  While  its  position  as  the  foremost  city 
of  the  Northwest  is,  perhaps,  menaced  by  the  pheno- 
menal growth  of  Seattle,  it  will  always  be  the  metropolis 
of  a  vast  region. 

The  railroad  running  east  from  Pori;land  into  south- 
O  200 


THE   CONQUEST   OF   ARID  AMERICA 

em  Idaho  crosses  the  Cascade  Mountains  and  follows  the 
Columbia  River  for  a  considerable  distance.  It  pene- 
trates the  plains  and  rolling  hills,  which  are  chiefly  de- 
voted to  wheat-farming,  and  passes  on  through  the  min- 
ing regions  in  the  Blue  Mountains  and  the  sage-brush 
deserts  which  mark  the  most  easterly  counties  of  the 
State.  Here  settlement  is  extremely  sparse  and,  in  most 
localities,  development  has  not  proceeded  beyond  the 
frontier  stage.  It  is  a  prosperous  stock  country,  but 
large  portions  of  it  are  capable  of  better  things.  To 
quote  F.  H.  Newell: 

"  It  may  be  pictured  as  a  series  of  broad  plains  and  mesas, 
covered  with  lava  of  various  ages,  from  that  outpoured  recently 
to  the  ancient  flows  whose  surface  has  largely  changed  into 
soil.  This  supports  a  dense  growth  of  sage-brush,  and  also 
juniper  near  the  mountains,  these  being  intermingled  with 
forage  plants.  The  vegetation  becomes  sparse  out  on  the  broad 
valleys,  but  nearly  everywhere  furnishes  good  grazing." 

Here  the  land  is  chiefly  the  property  of  the  Govern- 
ment. Large  areas  are  susceptible  of  irrigation  and  of 
serving  as  the  foundation  of  a  very  desirable  class  of 
homesteads.  The  water  supply  is  quite  abundant,  as 
the  Columbia  receives  several  large  tributaries  from  the 
south  which  might  readily  be  turned  upon  the  soil. 
Among  the  valleys  where  large  opportunities  for  rec- 
lamation may  be  found,  chiefly  by  means  of  storage, 
are  those  watered  by  the  Snake  River,  the  Malheur,  the 
Des  Chutes,  the  John  Day,  and  Willow  and  Bully 
Creeks.  There  are  also  many  large  natural  lakes  in 
eastern  Oregon  which  might  be  drawn  upon  for  irriga- 
tion.    There  are  large  possibilities  in  connection  with 

210 


OEEGON   IN   TRANSITION 

the  development  of  underground  supplies  by  means  of 
artesian  wells. 

The  altitude  of  this  district  ranges  from  three  thou- 
sand to  four  thousand  feet,  though  the  mountains  reach 
eight  thousand  feet  or  more.  The  climate  is  entirely 
different  from  that  of  western  Oregon.  There  is  a  wide 
range  of  temperature  during  the  course  of  the  year — a 
good  deal  of  honest  cold  in  the  winter  and  of  honest  heat 
in  the  summer.  The  winter  also  brings  snow  and  ice, 
though  these  do  not  remain  long  at  a  time.  It  is  the 
familiar  climate  of  the  temperate  zone,  agreeably  tem- 
pered by  the  prevailing  aridity  of  the  Far  West. 

Taken  as  a  whole,  Oregon  is  capable  of  furnishing 
work  and  homes  for  large  numbers  of  men  and  women. 
Under  wise  laws  governing  its  development,  it  could 
absorb  hundreds  of  thousands  into  its  agricultural  life 
and  thousands  more  in  the  use  of  other  natural  re- 
sources, such  as  the  forests,  the  mines  and  quarries,  the 
grazing  lands  and  water  powers.  These  developments 
would  necessitate  more  thousands  in  the  various  employ- 
ments of  numerous  towns.  To  put  it  in  a  word,  Oregon 
is  a  great  State,  now  only  in  the  infancy  of  its  develop- 
ment, waiting  to  be  used  when  men  shall  have  need  of 
its  resources  and  shall  be  wise  enough  to  fit  their  laws 
and  institutions  to  the  conditions  it  offers  them. 

Oregon  is  to-day  in  a  state  of  transition.  It  has  been 
known  as  a  land  of  excessive  rainfall,  and  it  is  now  to 
be  celebrated  because  of  its  triumph  over  the  aridity 
which  prevails  throughout  much  the  larger  portion  of  its 
domain.  It  has  had  large  farms  and  the  single  crop; 
under  irrigation  systems  which  are  being  rapidly  ex- 

211 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  ARID  AMERICA 

tended,  both  by  private  and  public  enterprise,  it  is  to  have 
small  farms  and  diversified  productions.  Its  develop- 
ment has  been  notably  slow;  it  now  promises  to  go  for- 
ward by  strides  and  bounds  in  response  to  new  influences 
which  are  rapidly  rising  in  its  economic  life.  The  suc- 
cess of  the  Exposition  in  commemoration  of  the  Lewis 
and  Clark  centennial  will  greatly  strengthen  these  new 
tendencies  and  Oregon  may  be  expected  to  give  a  good 
account  of  itself  when  the  next  national  census  is  taken. 


212 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  RISING  STATE  OF  NEVADA 

Nevada,  after  a  period  of  stagnation  and  decline,  is 
moving  along  the  upward  path  with  steady  strides  and 
stands  well  to  the  front  among  States  which  are  con- 
spicuously prosperous. 

No  mining  camps  are  attracting  wider  attention  than 
Tonopah,  Goldfield,  and  Bullfrog.  No  new  agricultural 
district  is  more  prominently  in  the  eye  of  the  home- 
seeker  than  Carson  Valley,  watered  by  the  first  govern- 
ment canal  to  reach  completion.  No  railroad  develop- 
ments now  in  progress  promise  more  revolutionary  results 
in  opening  rich,  but  hitherto  idle,  natural  resources  to 
human  conquest,  than  the  "  Clark  Road,''  which  traverses 
the  neglected  empire  of  southern  Nevada,  the  Western 
Pacific,  which  is  to  cross  the  State  from  east  to  west,  and 
the  lines  which  have  been  extended  into  the  new  and 
flourishing  mining  camps  near  the  southwestern  border. 
And  few  indeed  are  the  towns  which  show  a  stronger 
pulse-beat  than  Reno,  the  commercial  capital  of  the 
State. 

No  division  of  the  Union  has  been  so  persistently  and 
grossly  misunderstood  as  the  big  sage-brush  common- 
wealth which  lies  between  Utah  and  California — ^two 
States  of  unusual  human  interest.  The  popular  im- 
pression of  Nevada  has  been  largely  created  by  those 

213 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  ARID  AMERICA 

whose  opinion  of  its  scenery  and  resources  is  based  on 
their  experience  of  a  railroad  flight  across  its  wide  ex- 
panse. They  glance  impatiently  out  of  the  car  window, 
inhale  some  alkaH  dust,  and  then  denounce  the  region 
as  "  only  fit  to  hold  the  earth  together."  If  they  happen 
to  be  literary  artists,  they  vent  their  disgust  in  some 
such  striking  phrases  as  these,  employed  by  a  popular 
writer  in  a  recent  novel : 

**  For  beauty  and  promise,  Nevada  is  a  name  among  names. 
Nevada !  Pronounce  the  word  aloud.  Does  it  not  evoke 
mountains  and  clear  air,  heights  of  untrodden  snow  and  valleys 
aromatic  with  the  pine  and  musical  with  falling  waters? 
Nevada  I  But  the  name  is  all.  Abomination  of  desolation 
presides  over  nine-tenths  of  the  place.  The  sun  beats  down  on 
a  roof  of  zinc,  fierce  and  dull.  Not  a  drop  of  water  to  a  mile  of 
sand.  The  mean  ash-dump  landscape  stretches  on  from  no- 
where to  nowhere,  a  spot  of  mange.  No  portion  of  the  earth  is 
more  lacquered  with  paltry,  unimportant  ugliness." 

What  a  difference  in  human  souls!  The  man  who 
sees  a  "  spot  of  mange  "  in  God's  handiwork  only  reflects 
the  spot  of  mange  within  himself,  and  shows  how  his 
own  intelligence  is  'Macquered  with  paltry,  unimportant 
ugliness."  John  C.  Van  Dyke  looks  upon  the  same  scenes 
and  then  writes,  in  that  classic,  "  The  Desert :  " 

"  Not  in  vain  these  wastes  of  sand.  And  this  time  not  be- 
cause they  develop  character  in  desert  life,  but  simply  because 
they  are  beautiful  in  themselves  and  good  to  look  upon  whether 
they  be  life  or  death.  In  sublimity — the  superlative  degree  of 
beauty — what  land  can  equal  the  desert  with  its  wide  plains, 
its  grim  mountains,  and  its  expanding  canopy  of  sky !  You 
shall  never  see  elsewhere  as  here  the  dome,  the  pinnacle,  the 
minaret  fretted  with  golden  fire  at  sunrise  and  sunset;  you 

214 


THE  RISING  STATE  OF  NEVADA 

shall  never  see  elsewliere  as  here  the  sunset  valleys  swimming 
in  a  pink  and  lilac  haze,  the  great  mesas  and  plateaus  fading 
into  blue  distance,  the  gorges  and  canyons  banked  full  of  purple 
shadow.  Never  again  shall  you  see  such  light  and  air  and 
color  ;  never  such  opaline  mirage,  such  rosy  dawn,  such  fiery 
twilight.  .  .  .  Look  out  from  the  mountain's  edge  once  more. 
A  dusk  is  gathering  on  the  desert's  face,  and  over  the  eastern 
horizon  tlie  purple  shadow  of  the  world  is  reaching  up  to  the 
sky.  The  light  is  fading  out.  Plain  and  mesa  are  blurring  into 
unknown  distances,  and  mountain-ranges  are  looming  dimly 
into  unknown  heights.  Warm  drift?  of  lilac-blue  are  drawn 
like  mists  across  the  valleys  ;  the  yellow  sands  have  shifted 
into  a  pallid  gray.  The  glory  of  the  wilderness  has  gone  down 
with  the  sun.  Mystery — that  haunting  sense  of  the  unknown — 
is  all  that  remains." 

The  difference  between  these  two  authors  is  only  a 
difference  in  development.  The  one  beholds  a  sealed 
book;  the  other  understands.  Nevada  is  typical  of  the 
whole  desert  region  between  the  Rockies  and  the  Western 
Ocean.  To  those  who  cannot  comprehend  its  strange 
ensemble  it  is  undeniably  ugly,  but  to  those  who  can 
comprehend,  it  is  a  land  stamped  with  a  beauty  full  of 
endless  surprises.  These  latter  are  not  necessarily  cul- 
tured Van  Dykes.  They  may  be  men  who  have  never 
studied  art  or  even  read  a  book.  Many  a  Piute  Indian 
has  looked  upon  the  deserts  and  mountains  of  Nevada 
with  a  comprehension  utterly  denied  to  the  novelist  who 
beholds  nothing  in  the  scene  except  a  "mean  ash-dump 
landscape." 

Even  the  fleeting  railroad  tourist  might  correct  his 
superficial  impression  of  Nevada's  worthlessness  by  get- 
ting out  of  the  car  occasionally.  Let  him  step  off  for  a 
few  moments  to  enjoy  the  cool  fragrance  of  the  little 

215 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  ARID  AMERICA 

oasis  at  Humboldt,  to  walk  within  the  shade  of  its  trees 
and  hear  the  music  of  its  waters.  The  little  patch  of 
green  which  a  hillside  spring  has  spoken  into  being  is  a 
sample  of  what  millions  of  desert  acres  will  become. 
Farther  on,  the  west-bound  traveller  catches  a  twilight 
glimpse  of  the  thriving  farms  of  Lovelock  or  the  green 
Truckee  meadows.  But  the  larger  examples  of  irriga- 
tion lie  off  the  beaten  path.  Such  an  instance  is  the 
Carson  Valley,  hidden  between  the  sheltering  shoulders 
of  the  Sierras.  To  appreciate  the  possibilities  of  the 
region,  the  critic  should  visit  that  valley  in  the  perfect 
Nevada  springtime  and  look  upon  its  farms,  its  homes, 
and  its  villages.  There  he  would  behold  a  memorable 
picture  of  thrift,  of  beauty,  and  of  peace,  from  the 
white  blossoms  in  the  dooryards  to  the  white  summits  of 
the  mountains,  and  there  he  might  read  the  true  proph- 
ecy of  Nevada's  future. 

Nevada  farmers  are  very  prosperous  on  the  average, 
taking  one  year  with  another,  and  probably  much  more 
so  than  the  farmers  in  more  pretentious  localities.  For 
the  most  part,  they  were  poor  when  they  came  and  have 
grown  steadily  better  off.  The  climate  is  perfectly 
adapted  to  the  production  of  all  the  cereals  and  hardy 
fruits.  The  wheat  is  perfect,  with  a  full,  rich  kernel 
and  a  clean,  golden  straw,  free  from  smut  and  rust. 
It  has  taken  prizes  at  all  the  great  expositions.  With  a 
variety  of  soil,  on  the  different  slopes  of  hillside,  plain, 
and  valley,  there  are  conditions  to  meet  almost  every 
requirement  in  an  agricultural  way  within  the  limitations 
of  climate.  It  seems  absurd  to  explain  that  Nevada  does 
not  produce  oranges,  yet  the  question  is  sometimes  asked 

216 


a 'J 

(J  V 


£45 


THE  EISING  STATE  OF  NEVADA 

by  those  who  only  know  that  Nevada  is  the  next-door 
neighbor  of  California.  Speaking  broadly,  Nevada  is  an 
elevated  plateau  in  the  Great  Basin  enclosed  by  the 
Wasatch  Range  on  the  east  and  the  Sierra  on  the  west, 
having  an  average  altitude  of  about  four  thousand  feet. 
Its  climate  is  that  of  the  north  temperate  zone.  The 
winter  is  cold,  the  summer  hot,  the  springtime  marked 
by  showers  and  high  wind,  the  autumn  long  and  golden. 
As  in  other  parts  of  the  arid  region,  the  dry  air  moderates 
cold  and  heat,  giving  man  and  vegetation  the  benelBlts 
arising  from  the  vigorous  qualities  of  these  extremes 
without  the  unpleasant  effects  which  are  felt  in  humid 
districts. 

The  national  irrigation  projects  in  Nevada  are  de- 
scribed in  a  later  chapter,  but  it  is  important  to  note  here 
the  influence  which  this  development  must  inevitably 
exert  upon  the  whole  social,  political,  and  commercial 
life  of  the  State.  There  will  be  a  steady  influx  of  popula- 
tion for  many  years  to  come.  Farms  will  be  smaller  and 
more  intensively  cultivated.  There  will  be  a  correspond- 
ing expansion  in  all  lines  of  business.  Social  life  in  the 
country  will  lose  its  frontier  characteristics,  and  politi- 
cal power  will  gravitate  largely  into  the  hands  of  the 
hosts  of  newcomers,  drawn  from  many  different  parts  of 
the  United  States.  Owing  their  opportunities  to  the  first 
great  national  experiment  in  the  public  ownership  of  utili- 
ties essential  to  industrial  development,  it  would  be 
strange  indeed  if  this  new  population — ^the  dominant 
element  of  the  future — does  not  favor  very  advanced 
ideas  in  politics. 

Of  all  the  slanders  circulated  about  Nevada,  the  story 
217 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  ARID  AMERICA 

that  its  mineral  wealth  was  exhausted  was  the  most 
senseless.  This  slander  has  been  effectually  answered  by 
events,  for  Nevada  is  to-day  the  scene  of  the  greatest 
activity  in  mining  and  the  centre  of  attraction  for  that 
large  public  which  rushes  toward  the  newest  and  most 
glittering  camp.  Writing  of  this  aspect  of  its  resources, 
Mr.  Robert  L.  Fulton,  one  of  the  most  prominent  and 
useful  citizens  of  Nevada,  says : 

"  Nothing  could  be  more  tempting  to  the  settler  than  the 
chance  to  find  a  good  mine  near  home,  and  there  is  not  a  valley 
in  Nevada  that  does  not  lie  within  sight  of  ranges  of  hills  con- 
taining a  good  percentage  of  the  precious  metals.  The  farmer's 
boy  need  not  loaf  in  the  saloon  or  post-office,  if  he  has  energy 
and  sense.  He  can  open  a  prospect  and  work  all  winter  in  a 
good  warm  tunnel  or  a  sheltered  cut,  and,  if  he  finds  ore,  he 
can  have  it  hauled  to  the  quartz-mill  in  the  spring,  just  as  his 
father  hauls  his  wheat  in  the  fall.  Mining  in  Nevada  has  had 
a  wonderful  history,  with  the  record  of  the  finest  camp  the 
world  has  ever  seen,  where  over  six  hundred  million  dollars 
were  taken  from  one  rock  a  mile  in  length,  but  the  past  is  but 
a  promise  of  what  is  to  be  when  the  State  is  settled  and  the 
university  has  taught  our  boys  how  to  test  the  rocks  and  pros- 
pect the  hundred  thousand  square  miles  of  territory  that  has 
hardly  been  scratched  as  yet." 

With  few  exceptions,  deep  mining  has  not  been  pur- 
sued. Only  the  richer  ores  near  the  surface  have  been 
utilized,  and  these  by  expensive  processes  and  at  high 
cost  of  transportation.  It  is  interesting  to  call  the  roll  of 
the  fourteen  counties  and  to  observe  their  mineral  possi- 
bilities. 

Elko,  in  the  extreme  northeastern  comer  of  the  State, 
where  the  railroad  traveller  enters  from  Utah,  yielded 
placer-gold  to  the  earliest  prospectors  of  the  Great  Basin 

218 


THE  KISING  STATE  OF  NEVADA 

and  has  gold  ledges  of  promising  extent  and  value  which 
are  now  being  carefully  explored.  Humboldt,  central 
on  the  northern  boundary,  presents  as  great  a  variety  of 
resources  as  any  district  in  the  United  States.  Besides 
silver,  it  possesses  gold,  copper,  lead,  tin,  iron,  antimony, 
nickel,  cobalt,  bismuth,  nitre,  sulphur,  gypsum,  borax, 
soda,  and  salt.  Coarse  gold  to  the  value  of  several  mil- 
lions has  been  taken  from  its  placer  and  gravel  mines. 
Gypsum  is  shipped  to  San  Francisco  for  fertilizer.  Near 
Lovelock^  in  this  county,  are  great  hills  of  fine  bessemer 
iron  ore,  yielding  eighty-six  per  cent,  of  iron  and  twelve 
per  cent,  of  aluminum,  with  no  trace  of  impurities. 
Eureka  county,  in  the  central  part  of  the  State,  has 
many  mines  in  which  gold  predominates,  besides  large 
deposits  of  magnetic  iron  ore,  of  lead,  of  granite,  and  of 
other  building  stones.  Lander,  adjoining  Eureka  on  the 
west,  has  valuable  undeveloped  gold  deposits  and  the 
richest  mines  of  antimony  in  the  world.  Of  the  western, 
counties,  Washoe  reports  recent  discoveries  of  gold,  cop- 
per, and  iron;  Douglas,  quartz  and  placer-gold;  Lyon, 
mines  which  run  high  in  gold,  with  but  little  silver; 
Churchill,  gold,  copper,  and  other  minerals ;  while  Storey 
contains  the  Comstock.  Esmeralda,  bordering  Cali- 
fornia on  the  extreme  southwest,  is  very  rich  in  gold- 
bearing  quartz,  and  is  being  actively  developed.  Lincoln 
and  Nye,  the  two  great  counties  of  the  south,  have  gold, 
copper,  lead,  antimony,  zinc,  quicksilver,  fire-clay,  chalk, 
soapstone,  borax,  and  alum.  In  Lincoln  there  is  a  de- 
posit of  zinc,  estimated  to  be  worth  several  millions, 
which  cannot  be  worked  because  of  lack  of  transportation 
facilities.  There  are  hills  of  salt,  the  product  of  which 
commands  locally  but  $1  per  ton,  owing  to  its  inaccessi- 

219 


THE   CONQUEST   OF   ARID   AMEEICA 

bility,  though  other  localities  in  the  State  pay  $20  to 
$40  per  ton  for  a  similar  product.  White  Pine  County, 
along  the  eastern  boundary,  has  extensive  gold  placers. 

Finally,  there  is  a  large  deposit  in  Elko  County  of 
something  which  is  said  never  to  have  been  discovered 
elsewhere — mineral  soap,  superior  in  cleansing  virtues  to 
any  of  the  manufactured  varieties  known  to  the  students 
of  modern  advertising.  As  the  country  was  principally 
occupied  by  Piute  Indians,  the  deposit  remained  undis- 
turbed for  nameless  centuries.  But  it  was  exhibited  at 
the  World^s  Fair  at  Chicago,  where,  it  is  to  be  feared,  it 
added  nothing  to  Nevada's  fame.  The  thing  was  so  palp- 
ably and  unmistakably  the  perfection  of  toilet  articles 
that  it  over-taxed  Eastern  credulity  and  was  quietly  set 
down  as  a  larger  piece  of  mendacity  than  of  soap. 

Standing  on  the  height  above  the  roaring  Truckee  at 
Reno,  in  the  midst  of  fragrant  alfalfa  fields  and  well- 
fruited  orchards,  but  little  imagination  is  required  to 
behold  the  Nevada  of  the  future  which  is  now  rapidly 
rising  on  the  Nevada  of  the  past.  A  big,  splendid, 
American  State,  blest  with  the  climate  in  which  English- 
speaking  man  has  won  nearly  all  his  triumphs,  except 
that  its  skies  are  cleared  by  aridity  and  its  sunshine 
brightened  by  altitude,  a  land  full  of  prosperous  little 
farms,  tilled  by  their  owners,  mountains  pouring  out 
their  annual  tribute  of  gold  and  silver,  towns  large 
enough  to  offer  the  refinements  of  modern  life  yet  small 
enough  to  escape  the  awful  contrasts  between  superfluous 
wealth  and  hopeless  poverty,  and  a  people  so  economically 
freed  and  politically  untrammelled  that  they  may  make 
their  institutions  what  they  will) — ^this  is  the  Nevada  of 
the  future. 

220 


:^  O    - 


.E  s:  S 


.^  E   S? 


'U  ^ 


H« 


?^ 


«cu 


'  CHAPTER  VIII 

THE   UNKNOWN   LAND   OF   WYOMING 

A  SINGLE  railroad  traverses  the  lengtli  of  Wyoming, 
taking  the  traveller  through  that  portion  of  the  State 
possessing  the  least  attractions  in  the  way  of  scenery  and 
development.  As  a  consequence,  thousands  of  people 
who  have  made  the  transcontinental  journey  think  of 
this  new  commonwealth  as  a  barren  wilderness  of  withered 
grass  and  stunted  sage-brush,  with  an  abundance  of 
rugged  mountain  views  along  its  southern  horizon,  but 
without  visible  means  of  support  for  population  save  a  few 
cheerless  trading  towns  and  grimy  coal-mining  camps. 
These  tourists  find  the  altitude  disagreeably  high  and  the 
atmosphere  generally  chilly,  if  not  cold.  They  behold  no 
cultivated  fields,  no  homes  framed  in  trees  and  vines ; 
hence  do  not  marvel  that  the  population  of  this  vast 
State  is  no  larger  than  that  of  fourth-class  cities  in  the 
East. 

Spite  of  this  popular  prejudice,  which  may  hardly  be 
complained  of  as  unreasonable,  Wyoming  is  a  very  great 
State  in  its  natural  resources,  and  must  some  day  sustain 
a  population  as  large  as  that  of  Ohio  and  Illinois.  If 
its  first  railroad  had  penetrated  its  central  or  northern 
counties  it  would  even  now  be  as  celebrated  and  as  pop- 
ulous as  Colorado.     Because  of  its  stores  of  coal  and 

221 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

petroleum  it  is  frequently  called  the  '*  Pennsylvania  of 
the  West."  Its  deposits  of  both  base  and  precious  metals 
are  extensive  and  widely  diffused,  though  the  present 
output  is  small,  owing  to  the  cost  of  transportation  and 
the  fact  that  mining  capital  and  enterprise  have  been  at- 
tracted elsewhere  by  the  greater  fame  of  other  localities. 
It  is  well  endowed  with  forests  and  blessed  with  the  no- 
blest scenery,  of  which  the  far-famed  grandeurs  of  the 
Yellowstone  Park  furnish  the  best  example.  But  its 
greatest  resources  are  those  of  water  and  of  land.  It  is 
estimated  that  not  less  than  ten  million  acres  of  fertile 
land  may  be  reclaimed  by  irrigation.  Distributed  rather 
evenly  through  different  portions  of  the  State,  and  sur- 
rounded by  the  wealth  of  mine,  forest,  water-power,  and 
natural  pastures,  this  irrigable  land  will  furnish  the  solid 
foundation  of  a  great  and  manifold  economic  life  in  fut- 
ure centuries. 

The  great  industry  of  Wyoming  from  the  time  of  its 
first  settlement  has  been  stock-raising.  Its  agriculture 
has  been  mostly  auxiliary  to  this.  Herds  of  horses, 
cattle,  and  sheep  are  grazed  upon  the  enormous  free 
pasture  or  range  from  spring  to  autumn,  and  then  fed 
upon  the  native  or  alfalfa  hay  raised  in  the  irrigated 
valleys.  This  industry  has  been  the  source  of  local  pros- 
perity and  enlisted  great  sums  of  eastern  and  foreign 
capital.  It  is  a  pursuit  which  does  not  develop  the 
higher  possibilities  of  the  country,  either  in  a  material 
or  social  way,  and  so  long  as  its  influence  strongly  domi- 
nated the  life  of  the  community  Wyoming  did  not  fur- 
nish an  attractive  field  for  settlers.  There  was  a  time 
when  prominent  men  actually  deprecated  the  growth  of 
population,  and  boldly  asserted  that  brute  cattle  were 

222 


THE    UNKNOWN    LAND    OF    WYOMING 

more  to  be  welcomed  than  men,  women,  and  children  in 
that  sparsely  settled  empire.  In  the  last  few  years,  how- 
ever, the  tendency  of  public  thought  and  political  action, 
consequently  of  development,  has  been  distinctly  away 
from  barbarism  and  towards  civilization. 

What  is  rather  grotesquely  known  as  "  The  Rustlers' 
War''  of  1S92  had  much  to  do  with  the  changed  con- 
ditions. Properly  speaking,  it  was  not  a  war,  but  a  raid, 
which  ended  disastrously  so  far  as  its  immediate  purpose 
was  concerned.  Individuals  and  companies  owning  large 
herds  of  horses  and  cattle  had  suffered  repeatedly  from 
the  depredations  of  thieves  or  "rustlers."  They  had 
often  apprehended  the  culprits  and  sought  by  every 
means  in  their  power  to  punish  them  through  the  courts. 
But  the  cases  were  tried  in  counties  where  public  sen- 
timent strongly  opposed  the  great  cattle-owners.  The 
result  was  that  no  jury  could  be  found  to  convict.  After 
a  long  and  exasperating  experience  of  this  kind  the 
large  stock  interests  determined  to  try  a  heroic  remedy. 
They  fitted  out  an  expedition,  consisting  mostly  of  rough 
characters  from  Texas,  and  thoroughly  armed  it,  even  a 
Gatling  gun  being  included  in  its  equipment.  The  ex- 
pedition was  led  by  prominent  and  wealthy  citizens  and 
accompanied  by  a  young  English  lord  in  search  of  a  new 
sensation. 

A  considerable  number  of  "rustlers,"  who  were  settlers 
living  in  lonely  places  with  small  bands  of  cattle  or  horses, 
were  marked  for  "removal,"  or,  plainly  speaking,  for 
murder.  The  expedition  set  out  blithely  enough,  har- 
boring no  doubts  of  its  complete  success  and  not  dream- 
ing that  any  obstacle  could  be  interposed  to  its  formi- 
dable array.     The  first  two  "  rustlers  "  encountered  were 

223 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

found  conveniently  at  their  cabin  doors  and  promptly 
despatched,  though  they  died  with  their  guns  in  their 
hands  and  were  able  to  make  a  feeble  response  to  the 
overwhelming  numbers.  But  beyond  these  two  assassi- 
nations the  expedition  was  unsuccessful.  The  small 
settlers  throughout  the  region  were  in  sympathy  with  the 
men  marked  for  death.  The  news  of  the  '*  invasion  " 
spread  with  incredible  swiftness,  and  before  the  expedition 
could  reach  the  homes  of  other  intended  victims  the 
*' rustlers"  and  their  farmer  allies,  under  the  aggressive 
leadership  of  Jack  Flagg — a  noted  character  in  the  neigh- 
borhood— rallied  in  large  numbers.  They  surrounded 
the  *' invaders"  at  a  farm-house,  and  would  have  exter- 
minated them  to  the  last  man  except  for  the  timely  ar- 
rival of  a  troop  of  United  States  cavalry  from  the  nearest 
fort.  After  several  months  of  delay,  the  powerful  politi- 
cal influence  of  those  who  had  organized  the  expedition 
succeeded  in  setting  its  members  free  without  serious 
punishment. 

Public  opinion  differed  much  as  to  the  justice  of  this 
bold  effort  to  dispose  once  and  for  all  of  the  annoying  and 
costly  evil  of  cattle -thieves.  By  some  it  was  regarded 
as  the  irrepressible  conflict  between  the  irrigated  farm 
and  the  free  range.  These  thought  that  the  real  animus 
of  the  affair  lay  not  in  the  just  complaint  against  a  few 
thieves,  but  in  the  fixed  determination  of  those  who 
profited  from  the  unrestricted  use  of  the  public  lands  to 
prevent,  at  any  cost,  further  settlement  by  honest  farmers. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  were  many  good  citizens,  men 
who  had  not  hesitated  to  risk  their  fortunes  in  construct- 
ing irrigation  works  for  the  very  purpose  of  opening 
certain  valleys  to  settlement,  who  did  not  hesitate  to 

224 


THE    UNKNOWN    LAND    OF    WYOMING 

defend  the  expedition  as  the  only  possible  means  of  end- 
ing an  intolerable  condition  in  the  State.  The  writer 
has  taken  pains  to  gather  testimony  years  after  the 
event,  when  angry  passions  had  wholly  passed  away,  and 
found  excellent  evidence  of  the  fact  that  those  who  were 
selected  for  extermination  at  the  hands  of  the  "  invad- 
ers" were  actually  cattle  -  thieves ;  that  it  was  clearly 
impossible  either  to  end  the  evil  or  to  stop  its  growth  by 
appeal  to  the  courts;  and  that  farmers  who  settled  in 
good  faith  were  never  molested  by  the  large  stock  in- 
terests. 

However,  the  political  control  of  Wyoming  speedily 
changed  hands  as  the  result  of  this  dramatic  episode. 
The  party  in  power  at  the  time  of  the  event  was  voted 
into  retirement,  and  the  party  which  denounced  the 
**  invasion"  as  a  savage  and  unmanly  attempt  to  make 
widows  and  orphans  of  the  wives  and  children  of  those 
who  honestly  sought  homes  in  the  public  domain  was 
installed  in  the  Capitol  at  Cheyenne.  The  probable 
truth  of  the  matter  is  that  wealthy  cattlemen  had  a  real 
grievance  which  they  could  not  adjust  peacefully  with- 
out years  of  patient  waiting.  They  felt  perfectly  justi- 
fied in  their  consciences  in  resorting  to  violence.  They 
believed  the  result  would  be  favorable  to  the.  prosperity 
and  good  name  of  the  State.  This  actually  proved  to  be 
the  case,  but  in  a  very  different  way  from  what  they  had 
anticipated.  It  drew  attention  in  a  startling  manner  to 
certain  evils  inseparable  from  the  open  range  and  put 
these  evils  on  the  road  to  ultimate  settlement  through 
Congressional  action.  It  broke  the  power  of  what  was 
doubtless  justly  known  as  **  The  Cattle  King"  in  State 
politics.  It  gave  an  impulse  to  better  forms  of  develop- 
P  225 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

ment  and  a  healthier  tone  to  public  thought.  Above 
all,  it  taught  the  men  of  the  frontier  the  great  lesson 
that  this  is  a  government  of  laws  and  institutions,  and 
that  nothing  is  to  be  gained  in  the  end  by  resorting  to 
violence,  at  least  when  nothing  more  precious  to  human- 
ity than  the  ownership  of  dumb  brutes  is  the  issue  in- 
volved. 

The  irrigation  development  of  "Wyoming  is  distributed 
over  a  wide  area.  As  has  already  been  said,  it  has  grown 
up  mostly  as  an  adjunct  to  the  cattle  business.  The 
water  supply  is  very  abundant,  and  admitted  of  the  con- 
struction of  many  cheap  canals  by  settlers,  without  the 
assistance  of  outside  capital.  Grass,  grain,  and  vege- 
tables are  the  principal  crops,  but  the  State  annually 
sends  from  half  a  million  to  one  million  dollars  beyond 
its  borders  for  agricultural  products.  This  is  due  in 
part  to  the  fact  that  the  chief  farming  centres  are  wide- 
ly separated  from  the  principal  towns  and  not  connected 
with  them  by  railroads.  It  is  due  also  to  the  fact  that 
small-farming  has  not  yet  been  undertaken  to  any  extent, 
and  that  farmers  produce  mostly  only  what  they  can  feed 
to  cattle  or  sell  to  others  having  cattle  to  feed. 

The  most  active  agricultural  region  is  in  the  north- 
central  portion  of  the  State,  in  Johnson  and  Sheridan 
counties.  It  was  from  this  district  that  the  marvellous 
wheat,  barley,  and  oats  were  sent  to  the  World's  Fair  at 
Chicago — products  which  astonished  Eastern  farmers  and 
won  the  highest  prizes.  Here,  as  indeed  throughout  the 
State,  the  farmers  are  highly  prosperous.  They  have 
never  known  the  miseries  of  their  drought  -  stricken 
neighbors  so  close  at  hand  in  Nebraska  and  Dakota. 
Selling  their  product  at  home,  they  have  not  felt  the  bur- 


THE    UNK:^rOWN    LAND    OF    WYOMING 

den  of  transportation  charges,  nor  had  their  prices  much 
reduced  by  the  glut  of  cereals  in  the  world's  market. 

The  earliest  irrigation  work  of  great  importance  was 
that  at  Wheatland,  sixty-five  miles  nori;h  of  Cheyenne. 
This  was  underi;aken  by  local  capitalists,  headed  by  ex- 
Senator  Carey.  After  surviving  many  diflBculties,  it  at 
length  entered  upon  a  period  of  real  prosperity  and 
created  the  finest  agricultural  colony  in  the  State.  It  is 
interesting  to  note  that  many  of  its  people  represent  the 
overflow  of  the  famous  Greeley  Colony  in  neighboring 
Colorado. 

The  most  notable  recent  enterprise  in  Wyoming  is 
that  undertaken  in  the  Bighorn  Basin  by  the  famous 
scout,  William  F.  Cody,  familiariy  known  as  *^  Buffalo 
Bill."  This  energetic  and  ambitious  man,  who  has  twice 
won  fame — first  as  a  daring  and  successful  scout,  and 
then  as  exhibitor  to  two  continents  of  the  life,  people,  and 
customs  of  the  Wild  West — has  laid  broad  and  deep  the 
foundations  of  a  still  stronger  claim  to  remembrance. 
He  conceived  the  idea  of  planting  civilization  in  one  of 
the  wildest  regions  which  he  had  first  known  as  hunter 
and  Indian-fighter.  The  money  which  the  public  poured 
into  the  coffers  of  his  Wild  West  show,  Cody  used  in  re- 
claiming and  colonizing  a  large  tract  in  the  valley  of  the 
Shoshone  Eiver  in  northern  Wyoming,  twenty  to  sixty 
miles  from  the  Montana  line  and  immediately  east  of 
Yellowstone  Park.  The  altitude  here  is  about  four 
thousand  feet,  and  the  climate  suited  to  the  production 
of  diversified  crops,  including  hardy  fruits.  It  is  also 
the  finest  of  cattle  countries,  and  is  surrounded  by  an 
abundance  of  mineral  and  timber.     Its  products  find 

227 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  ARID  AMERICA 

ready  sale  in  the  large  and  growing  mining  camps  of  the 
neighborhood,  as  well  as  of  Montana.  In  time  the  region 
must  acquire  a  large  population,  supporting  a  many- 
sided  life,  and  form  a  very  substantial  monument  to 
William  F.  Cody  and  his  work  for  the  West. 

These  lands  were  among  the  first  to  be  investigated  by 
the  Reclamation  Service,  and  now  form  the  "  Shoshone 
project "  which  is  described  elsewhere  in  this  book.  As 
there  stated.  Colonel  Cody  turned  over  to  the  Government 
all  his  rights  in  the  river,  in  order  that  the  project  might 
be  developed  on  the  largest  possible  scale. 

In  the  southern  part  of  Bighorn  County,  a  tract  of 
thirty-five  thousand  acres  of  alluvial  land  is  being  re- 
claimed. The  water  is  taken  from  the  Bighorn  River, 
which  furnishes  an  abundant  supply.  A  large  steel  flume 
to  carry  the  canal  across  the  river  is  a  notable  feature. 
The  elevation  of  the  land  is  about  four  thousand  feet,  and 
the  climatic  conditions  favor  the  growth  of  fall  wheat  and 
barley,  corn,  and  vegetables.  The  nearest  town  is  Wor- 
land.  The  great  drawback  to  the  development  of  this 
region  at  present  is  the  lack  of  railroad  facilities.  The 
settlers  expect  extensions  of  the  railroads  from  Cody  and 
Casper  to  Thermopolis,  in  1906. 

The  largest  project  by  private  capital  in  Wyoming  now 
is  one  for  the  reclamation  of  about  two  hundred  thousand 
acres  of  land  between  Cody  and  Burlington,  in  Bighorn 
County.  The  water  is  to  be  taken  from  the  south  fork  of 
the  Shoshone  River,  in  the  Oregon  Basin.  These  lands 
have  been  segregated  under  the  "  Carey  Act."  It  is  ex- 
pected that  the  lands  will  be  open  for  settlement  in  1907. 

AU  the  public  lands  in  Bighorn  County  are  in  the 


THE    UNKNOWN    LAND    OF    WYOMING 

Lander  United  States  Land  Office  District,  except  a 
few  townships  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  county,  which 
are  in  the  Buffalo  Land  District. 

Considerable  irrigation  development  by  private  enter- 
prise is  also  taking  place  in  Fremont  County.  About 
twenty  miles  north  of  the  town  of  New  Fork,  a  tract  of 
seven  thousand  acres  on  the  western  slope  of  the  Wind 
River  Mountains  is  being  reclaimed  and  will  soon  be  open 
to  settlement.  A  canal  has  also  been  completed  for  the 
irrigation  of  a  tract  of  over  six  thousand  acres  in  the 
western  part  of  this  county,  on  a  fork  of  the  Green  River, 
and  the  land  is  now  open  to  settlement.  When  this 
county  is  provided  with  railroad  facilities,  a  vigorous  and 
healthful  development  may  be  expected. 

The  great  activity  of  irrigation  development  in  Wyom- 
ing is  shown  by  the  fact  that  for  the  two  years  ending 
November  30,  1904,  the  State  Engineer's  office  issued 
1109  permits  to  appropriate  water,  and  316  applications 
for  enlargement  of  water  appropriations  were  filed  in  the 
same  period. 

In  the  decade  between  1890  and  1900,  Wyoming's 
population  increased  from  60,705  to  92,531 — over  fifty 
per  cent. — and  the  present  population  is  estimated  by  the 
Governor  at  over  one  hundred  and  twenty  thousand. 

In  the  sheep  industry,  Wyoming  ranks  first  in  the 
United  States,  having  now  over  five  million  sheep.  The 
wool  clip  of  1900  amounted  to  27,119,718  pounds,  with 
an  estimated  value  of  $3,796,760.  The  value  of  its  cat- 
tle in  the  same  year  was  over  six  million  dollars.  Horses 
raised  on  its  elevated  table  lands  are  superior  in  wind 
and  endurance.    In  May,  1903,  the  saddle-horse  "  Wyom- 

229 


THE  CONQUEST   OF.  AEID  AMERICA 

ing,"  considered  a  typical  product  of  the  State,  was  pre- 
sented to  President  Roosevelt,  and  is  now  in  the  White 
House  stables. 

In  1904,  Wyoming's  production  of  coal  amounted  to 
over  five  million  tons  ar^d  gave  employment  to  over  nine 
thousand  men.  One-fourth  of  the  area  of  the  State  is 
underlaid  with  coal.  It  is  estimated  that  since  1883,  the 
State  has  produced  15,206,092  pounds  of  copper,  of  the 
value  of  $2,267,775.60.  The  mining  of  iron  ore  is  as- 
suming considerable  importance,  as  well  as  the  produc- 
tion of  petroleum.  The  State  now  has  nearly  five 
hundred  manufacturing  establishments,  representing  an 
investment  of  over  three  million  dollars.  There  are  forty 
million  acres  of  government  land  and  about  ten  million 
acres  of  timber.  With  such  prodigal  wealth  of  raw  ma- 
terials, such  solid  and  substantial  values  already  de- 
veloped, and  such  an  impulse  toward  growth,  Wyoming  is 
destined  to  be  the  home  of  many  millions  of  prosperous 
and  contented  people. 

The  irrigation  law  of  Wyoming  is  widely  celebrated 
and  has  been  influential  in  moulding  the  institutions  of 
other  States,  and  even  those  of  Canada  and  Australia.  It 
is  based  on  the  sound  proposition  that  water  belongs  to 
the  public  and  that  only  the  public  can  grant  the  right 
to  its  use,  which  must  be  a  beneficial  use,  with  due  re- 
gard to  the  rights  and  interests  of  all  other  users,  present 
or  prospective.  This  fundamental  idea  is  applied  by 
means  of  a  thorough  and  effective  administrative  system. 
No  canal  proprietor  is  permitted  to  open  or  close  the 
headgates  of  his  own  canal.  This  is  done  by  public  offi- 
cials clothed  with  police  powers,  who  divide  the  water  in 


THE    UNKNOWN    LAND    OF    WYOMING 

strict  conformity  with  the  decrees  of  a  State  Board  of 
Control.  The  result  is  an  almost  complete  absence  of 
litigation  and  of  unseemly  strife  among  neighbors  which 
mar  the  irrigation  industry  in  many  other  localities. 

But  while  the  Wyoming  method  is  admirably  adapted 
to  that  State,  where  a  multitude  of  individual  proprie- 
tors take  water  from  a  common  source,  it  does  not  meet 
the  needs  which  are  arising  with  new  conditions  through- 
out the  West.  There  is  a  strong  and  irresistible  tendency 
toward  the  consolidation  of  many  small  conflicting  works 
into  comprehensive  public  systems,  and  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  on  each  watershed  there  will  finally  come  to  be 
one  system,  diverting  all  the  water  that  may  be  diverted, 
storing  all  that  may  be  stored,  and  pumping  all  that 
may  be  pumped.  This  method  will  make  for  the  highest 
efficiency  and  greatest  economy.  Each  watershed  will  be 
a  unit  in  itself  and  its  affairs  will  be  administered  by  its 
own  people — a  democracy  of  landed  proprietors  owning 
both  the  water  and  the  soil — without  State  interference. 
The  Wyoming  system  is  a  vast  improvement  over  the 
chaos  which  prevails  where  each  man  is  a  law  unto  him- 
self, but  the  new  system  which  is  arising  under  the  in- 
fluence of  national  irrigation  represents  a  step  far  in  ad- 
vance of  the  Wyoming  system. 


881 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE   PROSPERITY  OF  MONTANA 

Montana  is  a  State  of  magnificent  resonrces.  The 
first  white  men  who  ever  saw  it  —  French  explorers  in 
the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century — called  it  "The 
Land  of  the  Shining  Mountains/^  The  appellation  is 
true  as  well  as  poetic,  for  it  is  the  possession  of  its  snow- 
capped ranges,  reflecting  the  light  of  the  brilliant  sky, 
which  differentiates  Montana  from  the  adjoining  prairie 
States  of  the  Northwest.  It  is  the  mountains  which  hold 
the  wealth  of  waters  and  minerals  and  make  the  charac- 
ter of  the  climate. 

Montana  ranks  third  in  point  of  area  among  American 
States,  and  third  in  the  value  of  its  annual  mineral  out- 
put. It  is  yet  too  early,  by  many  years,  to  estimate  its 
final  place  in  extent  of  population  and  agriculture.  To- 
day mining  is  the  first  of  its  industries,  stock-raising  the 
second,  agriculture  the  third.  Mining  gave  the  impulse 
to  its  settlement  and  is  the  backbone  of  its  prosperity. 
The  forty  millions  of  dollars  annually  taken  out  in  cop- 
per, lead,  gold,  and  silver  make  it  one  of  the  most  pros- 
perous of  western  communities.  The  discovery  of  new 
mining  districts  steadily  continues,  and  the  flow  of  wealth 
from  this  item  of  the  State's  resources  will  endure  in- 
definitely.    The   conditionej  of  the   stock  industry  are 

232 


THE    PROSPERITY    OF    MONTANA 

very  similar  to  those  which  we  observed  in  Wyoming. 
Of  the  total  population — about  three  hundred  thou- 
sand— the  farmers  are  a  small  minority.  Nevertheless, 
irrigation  is  recognized  as  one  of  the  most  important  in- 
terests of  the  State,  and  the  field  open  to  settlement  offers 
many  attractions. 

The  first  ditches  in  Montana  were  made  for  the  pur- 
pose of  washing  gold-bearing  gravel  along  the  bars  and 
gulches.  When  their  usefulness  in  this  direction  was 
exhausted  they  were  turned  into  irrigation  canals  by  the 
farmers  who  came  close  upon  the  heels  of  the  early  miners. 
For  many  years  development  was  limited  to  works  of  this 
humble  character.  Farmers  had  their  own  individual 
ditches,  or  combined  their  labor  in  making  canals  suffi- 
cient to  water  small  districts.  In  this  manner  most  of 
the  mountain  streams  capable  of  easy  diversion  were  util- 
ized. As  in  Wyoming,  irrigation  was  largely  used  as 
only  an  adjunct  to  stock-raising.  In  recent  years  le- 
gitimate agriculture  has  begun  to  make  rapid  progress. 
Large  capital  has  been  invested  in  a  few  comprehensive 
irrigation  systems,  notably  in  the  valleys  of  the  Dearborn 
and  the  Sun  rivers,  north  of  Helena. 

Montana  is  divided  into  three  natural  drainage  areas — 
those  of  the  Missouri  and  Yellowstone  rivers  on  the  east 
of  the  main  range  of  the  Rockies,  and  that  of  the  waters 
tributary  to  the  Columbia  on  the  western  slope  of  the 
mountains.  The  eastern  slope  embraces  the  fertile  val- 
leys of  the  Yellowstone,  the  Gallatin,  the  Madison,  the 
Jefferson,  the  Beaverhead,  the  Prickly,  and  the  long  val- 
ley of  the  Missouri;  with  the  Milk-river  system  in  the 
extreme  north,  on  the  border  of  Canada.  The  western 
slope  is  mountainous  and  heavily  timbered,  with  com- 

23B 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

paratively  small  though  fertile  valleys.  The  principal 
streams  are  the  Flathead,  Clark's  Fork  of  the  Columbia, 
and  the  Kootenai.  The  ultimate  extent  of  irrigable  land 
within  the  boundaries  of  Montana  is  purely  speculative, 
estimates  ranging  from  ten  to  thirty  million  acres.  In 
the  matter  of  water  supply  the  State  is  among  the  most 
fortunate  in  the  West,  though  its  full  utilization  will 
require  vast  expenditure  for  the  construction  of  storage- 
works  and  of  long  canals.  Some  of  the  largest  rivers, 
like  the  Missouri  and  the  Yellowstone,  are  enclosed  by 
high  bluffs,  and  water  can  be  taken  to  the  elevated 
plains,  comprising  the  larger  areas  of  valuable  land, 
only  by  means  of  diversions  made  high  up  upon  the 
streams. 

The  opportunities  which  Montana  offers  to  settlers 
have  not  been  appreciated  as  they  deserve.  This  is 
doubtless  due  to  the  severity  of  the  climate,  which  is 
generally  misunderstood.  The  State  is  in  a  high  lati- 
tude, and  does,  indeed,  experience  cold  winters.  But  its 
valleys  are  comparatively  low,  averaging  much  lower 
than  those  of  Wyoming,  Colorado,  Nevada,  and  Utah, 
and  its  climate  decidedly  healthful.  The  thermometer 
goes  twenty  or  thirty  degrees  below  zero  in  the  winter, 
but  this  degree  of  cold  in  the  dry  air  of  Montana  is 
much  less  disagreeable  than  ten  degrees  above  zero  in 
any  of  the  cities  on  the  borders  of  the  Great  Lakes.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  State  enjoys  a  remarkably  even  pros- 
perity, and  no  other  localities  offer  better  certainty  of 
home  markets,  where  the  products  of  the  farm  can  be 
disposed  of  at  good  prices. 

There  are  many  large  and  growing  towns,  and  two  or 
three  cities  of  considerable  size.     The  mining  popula- 

234 


THE    PROSPERITY    OF    MONTANA 

tion  is  destined  steadily  to  increase,  while  manufactur- 
ing must  begin  in  earnest  during  the  next  decade.  The 
wheat,  rye,  oats,  and  vegetables  produced  in  the  irri- 
gated valleys  are  remarkable  both  in  quantity  and  qual- 
ity. The  brewers  of  Brooklyn,  New  York,  selected  the 
Manhattan  Valley  for  important  agricultural  operations, 
because  they  found  it  would  grow  the  finest  barley  in  the 
world.     Small  fruits  are  prolific  and  of  fine  flavor. 

Even  the  orchard  fruits,  especially  apples  and  plums, 
are  produced  successfully  in  the  more  sheltered  valleys. 
The  exhibits  which  one  sees  at  county  fairs,  particu- 
larly at  those  on  the  western  slope  in  valleys  like  the 
Bitter  Root,  make  surprising  revelations  of  the  fruit 
possibilities  in  this  northwestern  State.  But  the  settler's 
chief  opportunity  will  be  found  in  supplying  the  com- 
mon farm  products  required  by  the  large  and  growing 
population  in  the  cities  and  towns.  Of  the  present  local 
consumption,  the  great  portion  of  the  pork,  bacon,  ham, 
lard,  and  cheese,  and  nearly  half  of  the  flour,  butter  and 
eggs,  are  now  brought  in  from  elsewhere.  Efforts  are 
being  made  to  change  these  conditions,  and  especially  to 
increase  the  area  cultivated  in  hard  wheat.  When  such 
facts  are  considered  in  connection  with  the  cheap  land, 
abundant  water  supply,  and  healthful  climate,  it  is  ap- 
parent that  Montana  offers  great  attractions  to  colonists. 

The  Gallatin  Valley,  southeast  of  Helena  on  the  main 
line  of  the  Northern  Pacific,  is  the  most  famous  agri- 
cultural district  of  Montana.  It  is  well  settled,  with  a 
class  of  thrifty  farmers  engaged  in  producing  a  variety  of 
ordinary  crops.  Bozeman,  the  county  seat,  is  the  home 
of  the  State  Agricultural  College,  and  this  institute  has 
done  much  to  raise  the  standard  of  irrigation  and  of 

235 


THE    CONQUEST    OF    ARID    AMERICA 

farming  in  the  locality,  and  thus  to  enhance  the  valley's 
prestige.  The  Missouri  Valley,  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Great  Falls,  and  the  Bitter  Root  Valley  about  Missoula, 
are  other  well-developed  districts.  Crops  are  generally 
planted  in  April  or  the  first  half  of  May,  though  some- 
times in  March.  The  spring  rains  continuing  until  the 
middle  of  June,  irrigation  does  not  begin  until  that  date. 
Cattle,  sheep,  and  wool  are  shipped  to  eastern  markets, 
but  other  products  are  consumed  within  the  State. 

While  copper  and  the  precious  metals  are  the  chief 
mineral  products  of  the  State,  it  is  rich  in  lead,  iron, 
coal,  building  materials,  and  precious  stones.  It  is  esti- 
mated that  an  area  of  not  less  than  fifty  thousand  square 
miles  is  underlaid  with  bituminous  or  lignite  coal  of  good 
quality.  Coke  is  a  growing  product.  The  State  is  also 
rich  in  forests  and  abundantly  supplied  with  natural 
water-power.  It  has,  in  a  word,  all  the  materials  of  a 
diversified  industrial  life. 

The  social  and  political  life  of  Montana  is  vigorous 
and  interesting.  Both  the  climate  and  the  industries 
are  calculated  to  breed  a  sturdy  and  self-reliant  people. 
Helena,  the  capital,  located  in  what  was  formerly  known 
as  Last  Chance  Gulch,  has  long  enjoyed  the  reputation 
of  being  the  richest  city  in  proportion  to  its  population 
in  the  world.  Butte  is  still  larger — the  largest  mining 
camp  in  the  United  States.  These  two  leading  towns 
present  radically  different  aspects  of  western  life. 
Helena  is  the  political  and  social  capital,  Butte  the 
grimy  centre  of  industry.  Both  have  enjoyed  phenom- 
enal prosperity,  and  escaped,  to  a  large  degree,  the  re- 
lapses which  have  afflicted  other  ambitious  western 
cities  at  various  times. 

236 


THE    PROSPERITY    OF    MONTANA 

The  area  where  crops  can  be  successfully  grown  with- 
out irrigation  is  small,  and  practically  none  is  now  left 
open  to  entry.  Good  land  with  water  sells  for  from  ten 
to  thirty-five  dollars  per  acre,  the  average  price  being 
about  twenty-five  dollars.  Improved  lands  bring  as  high 
as  seventy-five  dollars  per  acre. 

The  truth  is  that  Montana  has  been,  and  is  yet,  a 
marvellously  substantial  State.  It  has  enjoyed  a  steady 
stream  of  wealth  from  the  mine,  tlie  range,  and  the  farm. 
Its  mercantile  enterprises  have  naturally  thriven  under 
these  conditions,  and  labor  has  been  busy  and  well  paid. 
It  has  not  been  the  policy  of  the  people  to  encourage 
immigration  on  reckless  lines  merely  to  increase  the_ 
population.  On  the  contrary,  the  public  sentiment  has 
been  notably  conservative,  and  has  only  urged  those  to 
come  who  could  be  self-supporting  by  tilling  the  soil  or 
establishing  other  industries.  ^^ 

Great  Falls,  located  at  the  most  eligible  water-power 
of  the  Upper  Missouri  river,  has  enjoyed  a  remarkable 
growth  of  population,  and  promises  to  become  in  time 
one  of  the  great  cities  of  the  West.  In  addition  to  the 
water-power,  it  has  the  advantage  of  being  surrounded 
by  the  raw  materials  of  manufacture,  in  the  shape  of 
coal,  iron,  timber,  and  the  products  of  the  range — such 
as  wool  and  hides — while  large  agricultural  districts  are 
tributary  to  it.  There  are  many  important  towns  along 
the  line  of  the  Northern  Pacific  and  the  Great  Northern 
railroads.  Of  these  Missoula  is  a  prosperous  mercantile 
point  on  the  western  slope,  and  Billings  is  the  focus  of 
agriculture  in  the  Yellowstone  Valley. 

Viewed  as  a  whole,  Montana  is  a  State  of  substantial 
achievement  and  of  splendid  promise. 

237 


CHAPTEE  X 

THE  AWAKElfliq^G  OF  NEW  MEXICO 

In  the  southwestern  Territories  modern  methods  of 
reclamation  are  asserting  their  influence  in  the  midst  of 
historic  and  prehistoric  irrigation  scenes. 

In  1539  Fray  Marcos  de  Nija,  the  earliest  European 
who  trod  the  soil  of  New  Mexico,  travelled  for  five  days 
through  a  "valley  well  watered  and  in  a  high  state  of 
cultivation,  so  that  three  thousand  horsemen  might  have 
been  sustained  there."  Another  sixteenth- century  visit- 
or saw  corn-fields  *'  watered  by  a  small  river  which  flowed 
near  by,  along  the  banks  of  which  were  growing  great 
beds  of  roses,  similar  to  those  of  Castile."  Many  a  tour- 
ist on  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  Eailroad  has  seen  the  in- 
dustrious Pueblo  Indians  at  work  in  their  fields  about 
Laguna.  The  travellers  of  three  hundred  and  fifty  years 
ago  looked  upon  these  same  fields,  which  were  irrigated 
then  precisely  as  now,  and  as  they  probably  had  been  for 
centuries  before. 

New  Mexico  is  much  less  favored  in  its  water  supply 
than  the  northern  States  of  the  arid  region.  Many  of 
its  streams  are  torrential  and  intermittent  in  character, 
carrying  water  in  floods  at  some  seasons  and  exhibiting 
dry  channels  when  moisture  is  most  needed.  A  large 
portion  of  the  water  supply,  when  the  irrigation  indus- 

238 


THE    AWAKENING    OF    NEW    MEXICO 

try  shall  be  fully  developed,  will  be  obtained  by  storage 
and  from  underground  sources.  This  process  has  al- 
ready begun,  but  its  operations  will  be  much  extended. 
Scattered  all  over  the  territory  are  the  petty  ditches  of 
that  numerous  Mexican  and  Indian  population  which 
lives  in  serene  peace  and  comfort  npon  the  fruits  of  its 
unambitious  efforts  at  tilling  the  soil. 

The  important  streams  are  the  San  Juan  in  the  north- 
western comer  of  the  Territory,  the  Rio  Grande,  which 
flows  through  the  central  portion  from  Colorado  to  Mex- 
ico, and  the  Rio  Pecos  in  the  southeast.  These  streams 
and  their  tributaries  furnish  the  basis  of  the  modern  ir- 
rigation industry  of  New  Mexico. 

The  northwestern  part  of  the  Territory  is  a  pictu- 
resque and  promising  region,  fortunate  alike  in  mineral 
and  water  resources,  in  the  fertility  of  its  soil,  and  the 
charm  of  its  climate.  A  number  of  small  irrigation 
systems  have  been  constructed,  but  storage  will  be  re- 
quired before  the  opportunities  of  the  district  can  be  ex- 
tensively realized.  The  rivers  are  the  San  Juan  and  its 
tributaries,  the  most  important  of  these  being  the  Pine, 
the  Animas,  and  the  La  Plata.  When  these  are  fully 
utilized,  thousands  of  small  farmers  will  be  able  to  estab- 
lish profitable  industries,  including  the  culture  of  finely 
flavored,  delicate  fruits.  They  will  find  home  markets 
in  surrounding  mining  camps  and  in  supplying  feed  for 
sheep  and  cattle  which  range  upon  the  public  pastures. 
Although  this  portion  of  the  Territory  is  now  remote 
from  the  main  lines  of  railroad  travel,  its  superior  advan- 
tages must  attract  the  attention  of  enterprise  and  im- 
migrants in  the  future  and  make  it  one  of  the  most 
prosperous  parts  of  the  future  State. 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  AEID  AMEKICA 

New  Mexico  is  distinguished  by  large  land  grants  dat- 
ing from  the  days  of  Spanish  control.  They  were  natur- 
ally located  along  the  watercourses,  in  what  appeared  to 
be  the  most  attractive  portions  of  the  field  open  for  selec- 
tion. These  enormous  grants  have  materially  retarded 
development,  for  the  reason  that  their  titles  were  in  dis- 
pute for  many  years  and  their  owners  generally  "land 
poor."  The  Court  of  Private  Claims,  which  recently 
completed  its  work,  performed  a  great  service  for  the 
arid  region  in  the  settlement  of  such  disputed  land  titles. 

One  of  the  most  important  of  these  properties  is  now 
known  as  the  Maxwell  Land  Grant,  and  constitutes  a 
principality  in  the  northwestern  part  of  the  Territory,  en- 
croaching slightly  upon  Colorado.  Large  capital  has 
been  used  in  the  development  of  the  mineral  and  agri- 
cultural resources  of  this  grant.  Its  principal  streams 
are  the  Vermejo  and  the  Cimarron.  Both  have  been  util- 
ized extensively  in  connection  with  systems  of  reservoirs 
and  canals  which  are  notable  for  some  of  their  engineer- 
ing features.  Large  areas  have  been  irrigated  and  are 
cultivated  in  various  crops. 

The  waters  of  the  Eio  Grande  have  been  diverted  at 
many  points  along  its  course.  This  river  rises  in  Colo- 
rado, where  a  large  portion  of  its  waters  are  taken  out 
for  use  in  the  San  Luis  Valley.  This  interferes  with 
New  Mexico  irrigation  during  the  stage  of  low  water  in 
the  summer.  The  stream  reaches  old  Mexico  still  further 
diminished,  and  vexatious  interstate  and  international 
complications  have  long  existed  from  this  cause. 

In  1896,  the  Eepublic  of  Mexico  made  formal  con- 
plaint  of  the  diminished  flow  of  the  stream  at  El  Paso. 

240 


THE  AWAKENING  OF  NEW  MEXICO 

Its  citizens  have  made  a  beautiful  agricultural  and  horti- 
cultural region  where  Texas  reaches  out  r.  slender  finger 
of  prosperity  at  El  Paso.  Here,  they  have  practised 
irrigation  for  over  two  hundred  and  eighty  years,  and 
live  with  an  enviable  degree  of  comfort  and  thrift, 
though  their  methods  are  crude  and  ancient.  The  matter 
was  referred  to  an  International  Boundary  Commission, 
which  recommended  the  construction  of  an  international 
dam  in  the  stream,  at  a  spot  called  Elephant  Butte,  about 
four  miles  above  El  Paso,  the  extension  of  Mexico  terri- 
tory up  to  the  proposed  dam,  the  equal  ownership  of  the 
reservoir  and  water  supply  between  the  two  republics, 
and  the  construction  of  other  large  reservoirs  on  the 
stream  in  New  Mexico  to  be  forbidden. 

There  were  many  objections  to  this  plan.  New  Mexico 
objected  because  some  twenty-five  thousand  acres  of  good 
land  belonging  to  its  citizens  above  the  dam  site  would 
be  submerged,  because  of  the  prohibition  of  other  dams 
on  the  stream,  and  for  other  reasons.  Texas  also  ob- 
jected. At  the  Twelfth  National  Irrigation  Congress, 
held  at  El  Paso,  Texas,  November  15  to  18,  1904,  an- 
nouncement was  made  of  a  new  plan  for  the  solution  of 
the  difficulty  by  the  engineers  of  the  United  States  Eec- 
lamation  Service,  which  immediately  enlisted  the  en- 
thusiastic support  of  the  representatives  of  all  the  parties 
in  interest.  A  resolution  endorsing  this  new  plan  was 
signed  by  the  delegates  from  Mexico,  New  Mexico,  and 
Texas,  and  the  way  now  appears  to  be  clear  for  the  settle- 
ment of  the  question  in  a  way  to  do  justice  to  all. 

The  Reclamation  Service  has  been  surveying  and 
studying  the  stream  for  two  years  with  a  view  to  develop- 
Q  241 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  ARID  AMEKICA 

ing  its  resources  and  settling  this  and  other  difficulties. 
Their  plan  is  to  build  a  storage  dam  at  a  new  site  about 
a  quarter  of  a  mile  below  Elephant  Butte.  It  has  been 
found  that  this  can  be  done  in  such  a  way  as  to  avoid  the 
submergence  of  New  Mexico's  lands.  The  proposed  dam 
will  be  175  feet  high  at  the  lower  end,  the  storage  basin 
forty  miles  long,  and  the  storage  capacity  two  million 
acre  feet,  sufficient  to  irrigate  one  hundred  and  eighty 
thousand  acres  of  land.  It  will  be  the  largest  dam  on  the 
river,  and  entirely  interrupt  the  flow  of  the  stream,  even 
in  wet  years,  and  hold  them  for  use  as  needed.  It  is  such 
achievements  as  this  which  are  demonstrating  the  wisdom 
of  the  policy  of  national  control  of  the  reclamation  of  the 
arid  West. 

Much  of  the  most  notable  irrigation  development  in 
New  Mexico  is  that  which  has  been  accomplished  since 
1890  in  the  Pecos  Valley.  It  is  in  the  southeastern  quar- 
ter of  the  Territory,  bordering  upon  the  Staked  Plains  of 
Western  Texas.  No  other  locality  in  the  arid  region  has 
had  the  benefit  of  such  daring  enterprise  and  dauntless 
faith  as  have  been  lavished  upon  this,  originally  one  of 
the  most  forbidding  and  unpromising  of  Western  valleys. 
By  sheer  force  of  money  it  has  been  translated  from  a 
semi-barbarous  stock-range,  fit  only  to  support  lean  cat- 
tle, to  an  attractive  field  for  settlement,  where  thou- 
sands of  families  can  make  their  homes  and  win  a  certain 
livelihood  from  the  soil.  Civilization  has  laid  its  hand 
on  the  Pecoe  Valley  and  a  crop  of  new  institutions  has 
begun  to  sprout  from  its  soil. 

The  valley  is  fortunate  beyond  any  other  part  of  the 
Territory  in  its  water  supplies.  The  Pecos  River  and 
its  tributaries  drain  a  vast  watershed  and  furnish  a  peren- 

242 


THE  AWAKEN-ING  OF  NEW  MEXICO 

nial  flow  of  large  dimensions.  This  has  been  conserved 
by  large  reservoirs,  one  of  which  is  the  second  largest 
reservoir  in  the  world.  The  valley  is  also  blessed  with 
extraordinary  springs  of  flowing  water,  with  artesian 
basins,  and  with  underground  supplies  that  may  be  lifted 
to  the  surface  at  comparatively  small  expense.  With 
splendid  disregard  for  immediate  financial  returns,  these 
supplies  have  been  utilized  and  led  over  the  valley  by  a 
thousand  miles  of  canals  and  ditches.  The  same  liberal 
enterprise  built  railroads,  established  towns  with  modem 
facilities,  and  acquired  large  tracts  of  irrigable  land. 
At  Artesia,  formerly  Stegman,  land  is  being  rapidly 
taken  up  by  settlers  under  the  homestead  and  desert  land 
laws,  to  be  irrigated  from  artesian  wells.  The  valley 
has  passed  safely  through  recent  seasons  of  drought 
which  proved  disastrous  to  less  favored  sections,  and  land 
values  are  steadily  rising. 

Lying  in  an  altitude  varying  from  three  thousand  to 
three  thousand  five  hundred  feet,  but  in  the  latitude  of 
the  extreme  south,  the  Pecos  Valley  enjoys  a  good  cli- 
mate. Its  winters  are  short  and  not  severe,  though  the 
mercury  falls  below  freezing  and  thin  ice  is  formed  on 
still  water.  The  summer  days  are  hot,  as  elsewhere 
throughout  the  Southwest,  but  the  nights  are  invariably 
comfortable,  owing  to  the  elevation  of  the  country,  which 
is  on  the  high  plateau  of  the  Kocky  Mountain  region. 
The  drawback  about  the  climate  is  the  wind,  which  some- 
times develops  into  sandstorms  of  considerable  severity. 
With  the  extension  of  the  cultivated  area  and  the  growth 
of  trees  this  disadvantage  will  be  minimized. 

Fields  can  be  cultivated  almost  continuously  and  early 
243 


THE   CONQUEST   OF   ARID  AMERICA 

crops  of  vegetables  and  small  fruits  grown.  Alfalfa 
is  cut  four  times  a  year,  and  after  that  furnishes  con- 
siderable pasturage.  All  grains  do  well,  and  Kaffir  corn 
and  Milo  maize  are  extensively  cultivated.  Vegetables 
can  be  successfully  grown  throughout  the  valley,  but 
seem  to  have  been  somewhat  neglected  in  the  south. 
Cotton  raising  is  a  flourishing  industry  here,  and  there  is 
a  gin  at  Carlsbad. 

The  Pecos  Valley  is  particularly  adapted  to  sugar- 
beet  culture.  A  series  of  experiments  has  demonstrated 
that  the  soil  and  climate  are  especially  favorable  to  the 
growth  of  beets.  A  sugar-beet  factory  was  erected  in 
1896,  and  the  farmers  planted  considerable  areas  to  beets. 
The  general  average  of  all  the  beets  delivered  to  the 
factory  in  car-load  lots  the  first  year,  showed  seventeen 
per  cent,  of  sugar  in  the  beets,  with  an  average  purity  of 
eighty-two  per  cent.  This  is  a  higher  percentage  of 
actual  extraction  of  pounds  of  sugar  to  pounds  of  beets 
than  has  been  realized  anywhere  else  in  the  world.  Un- 
fortunately, the  factory  failed  and  afterward  burned 
down,  so  that  the  industry  is  now  dormant.  The  people 
of  the  valley  are  full  of  faith  in  the  industry,  under 
proper  management,  and  believe,  apparently  with  good 
reason,  that  it  is  destined  to  become  a  '^  sugar  belt." 

The  valley  has  not  been  in  cultivation  long  enough  to 
determine  the  limitation  of  its  products.  The  chemical 
qualities  of  the  soil  have  been  the  subject  of  careful 
study  by  experts,  and  the  people  are  gradually  learning 
to  what  uses  different  districts  are  best  adapted.  In  the 
upper  portion  of  the  valley,  in  what  is  locally  known  as 
the  Roswell  country,  there  are   several  ranches  which 

244 


THE  AWAKENING  OF  NEW  MEXICO 

have  been  cultivated  for  many  years.  These  have  demon- 
strated beyond  question  the  capabilities  of  soil  and 
climate  for  the  production  of  the  finest  apples,  perfect  in 
form,  flavor  and  coloring.  The  raising  of  celery  and 
cantaloupes  are  new  and  promising  industries  here.  The 
lower  valley  seems  more  favorable  to  delicate  fruits, 
such  as  peaches,  grapes  and  apricots. 

One  feature  of  this  valley  is  especially  worthy  of  the 
attention  of  settlers.  This  is  the  fact  that  the  best  of 
pasture  adjoins  the  irrigable  lands,  on  either  hand,  so 
that  fine  cattle,  sheep,  and  horses  are  profitably  raised 
in  connection  with  the  small-farming  industry.  Rais- 
ing winter  fodder  on  their  irrigated  acres,  the  settlers 
co-operate  in  the  management  of  their  herds  during  the 
range  season.  For  every  acre  under  cultivation,  there  are 
three  hundred  acres  of  grazing  land,  over  large  areas  of 
which  an  abundance  of  water  is  found  at  an  average 
depth  of  from  twenty  to  four  hundred  feet.  Windmills 
dot  the  country,  and  practically  every  acre  of  gazing 
land  is  occupied  by  live  stock. 

The  chief  town  of  the  lower  valley,  formerly  Eddy, 
but  now  called  Carlsbad,  enjoys  a  considerable  degree  of 
prosperity,  both  as  the  centre  of  a  flourishing  agricul- 
tural region  and  as  one  of  the  many  attractive  health 
resorts.  Roswell  is  the  metropolis  of  the  upper  valley, 
and  the  scene  of  the  greatest  present  activity  of  the  Rec- 
lamation Service  in  the  Territory.  An  account  of  the 
Government  project  on  the  Hondo  River,  near  this  place, 
will  be  found  in  the  chapter  on  government  reclamation 
work. 

The  development  of  the  irrigation  resources  of  New 
245 


THE   CONQUEST  OF  ARID  AMERICA 

Mexico  has  been  stimulated  by  a  law  enacted  four  years 
prior  to  the  passage  of  the  present  national  irrigation 
law,  under  which  half  a  million  acres  of  land  were 
granted  to  the  Territory  on  condition  that  they  be  re- 
claimed by  private  enterprise.  These  lands  are  selected 
by  a  Land  Commission,  which  in  1904  had  selected  over 
233,000  acres.  The  disposal  of  these  lands  is  in  the 
hands  of  a  Commission  of  Irrigation,  created  by  the 
Territorial  Legislature  in  1901  for  the  purpose  of  carry- 
ing out  the  provisions  of  the  act.  By  the  report  of  this 
Commission  for  1904,  it  appears  that  there  were  then 
pending  before  it  six  private  irrigation  enterprises  with 
a  total  estimated  capacity  of  157,000  acres,  and  two 
others  not  yet  acted  upon,  with  a  total  capacity  of  42,000 
acres.  No  work  had  been  done,  but  it  was  believed  that 
within  a  year  several  of  these  irrigation  projects  would 
be  undertaken  and  work  on  the  necessary  dams,  reser- 
voirs, and  ditch  systems  be  commenced. 

The  resources  of  New  Mexico,  while  probably  not  as 
rich  as  those  of  more  northerly  states,  are  yet  diversified 
and  largely  undeveloped.  The  annual  output  of  gold  and 
silver  is  increasing,  and  seems  likely  to  continue  indefi- 
nitely to  do  so.  A  fine  quality  of  coal  is  found  in  large 
quantities,  and  is  an  important  item  of  regular  income. 
The  area  of  merchantable  timber  is  said  to  amount  to 
five  million  acres,  and  that  of  woodlands,  useful  for  fuel 
and  fencing,  is  much  more  extensive.  There  are  four 
forest  reserves  with  a  total  area  of  5,125,000  acres.  The 
mining  of  precious  stones,  which  dates  back  to  the  Span- 
ish conquest,  is  a  flourishing  and  growing  industry.  The 
turquoise   mines   are   particularly   rich   and   profitable. 

d46 


THE  AWAKENING  OP  NEW  MEXICO 

Though  the  amount  of  their  production  is  closely 
guarded,  it  is  known  to  be  large,  while  the  quality  of  the 
stone  is  equal  to  that  of  Russia,  Persia,  and  the  East 
Indies. 

The  social  fabric  of  the  Territory  is  a  curious  blend- 
ing of  Mexican  peons,  of  town-building  Indians,  of  hardy 
frontiersmen  engaged  in  mining  and  stock-raising,  and 
of  enterprising  newcomers  who  believe  in  the  future  of 
the  country.  Of  these  elements,  the  Mexicans  are  the 
most  numerous.  They  do  not  differ  materially  from  their 
kinsmen  on  the  southern  side  of  the  Rio  Grande.  Living 
in  scattered  settlements  along  the  mountain  streams, 
they  enjoy  a  comfortable  existence  in  return  for  their 
humble  labor.  The  Indian  population  includes  the 
Pueblos,  the  Zunis,  the  Navajos,  and  the  Apaches,  and 
is  marvellously  interesting,  and  usually  peaceful  and  in- 
dustrious. The  condition  of  these  Indians  is  being  slowly 
improved  by  the  construction  of  irrigation  works  for  their 
benefit,  and  other  means.  The  growth  of  the  white 
population  has  been  slow,  but  will  increase  rapidly  with 
the  development  of  irrigation. 

New  Mexico  is  one  of  the  American  communities 
whose  greatness  is  of  the  future.  Well  endowed  with  raw 
materials,  it  awaits  the  impulse  to  be  imparted  by  the 
new  century  and  the  pressure  of  an  outreaching  civil- 
ization. It  is  distinctly  a  land  of  opportunity,  and  one 
of  the  few  remaining  spots  where  settlers  of  small  means 
can  hope  to  prosper  now,  without  awaiting  the  slow  de- 
velopment of  resources  by  the  National  Government.  A 
Bureau  of  Immigration  is  maintained  by  the  Territory, 
for  the  purpose  of  supplying  information  to  intending 
settlers.     The  Secretary's  address  is  Santa  Fe. 

d47 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  BUDDING   CIVILIZATION   OF  ARIZOlfA 

Arizona  is  a  land  apart.  With  the  single  exception 
of  southeastern  California,  it  differs  in  many  respects 
from  all  other  sections  of  western  America.  This  is  es- 
pecially true  of  all  those  portions  of  the  Territory  which 
will  sustain  the  densest  future  population  and  develop 
the  characteristic  institutions  of  the  country. 

Speaking  of  its  atmosphere — the  product  of  its  pe- 
culiar climatic  conditions  and  physical  environment  — 
Whitelaw  Reid  has  said :  "  It  seems  to  have  about  the 
same  bracing  and  exhilarating  qualities  as  the  air  of  the 
Great  Sahara  Desert  in  northern  Africa,  or  of  the  des- 
ert about  Mount  Sinai,  in  Arabia.  It  is  much  drier 
than  in  the  part  of  Morocco,  Algiers,  or  Tunis  usually 
visited,  and  drier  than  any  part  of  the  valley  of  the  Nile 
north  of  the  First  Cataract.  It  seems  to  me  about  the 
same  in  quality  as  the  air  on  the  Nile  between  Assouan 
and  Wady-Halfa,  but  somewhat  cooler." 

This  description  of  the  Arizona  air,  which  is  remark- 
ably happy,  may  be  accepted  as  a  key  to  the  true  char- 
acter of  the  country.  It  is  a  semi-tropical  desert,  like 
the  region  about  the  southern  and  eastern  shores  of  the 
Mediterranean,  where  civilization  was  born  of  the  ancient 
art  of  irrigation.     This  is   said  with   reference  to  the 

248 


BUDDING  CIVILIZATION  OF  ARIZONA 

southern  and  western  parts  of  the  Territory,  which  are 
drained  by  the  Gila  and  Colorado  rivers.  Northern  Ari- 
zona is  distinguished  by  its  mines,  its  notable  forests, 
and  the  indescribable  grandeurs  of  the  famous  Colorado 
canyon.  The  southeastern  quarter,  which  adjoins  New 
Mexico,  is  a  great  pasture,  bearing  scanty  or  generous 
crops  of  nutritious  wild  grasses,  according  as  the  season 
is  dry  or  wet. 

The  Salt  River  Valley  is  the  glory  of  Arizona.  Ap- 
proaching  it  from  either  of  the  transcontinental  rail- 
ways the  traveller  sees  naught  but  the  gray  desert  soil, 
marked  by  the  gnarled  branches  of  the  mesquite  and  the 
slender  pillar  of  the  cactus.  Even  the  mountain-sides 
appear  to  be  devoid  of  verdure  and  tanned  to  a  dark 
brown  by  the  sunshine  of  centuries.  But  suddenly  all 
the  beauties  of  the  Garden  of  Eden  burst  upon  the  aston- 
ished gaze  of  the  visitor.  Wherever  the  waters  of  irri- 
gation have  moistened  the  desert,  and  man  has  planted 
the  seed  of  grass,  flower,  or  tree,  the  most  luxuriant 
vegetation  has  sprung  from  the  soil  to  revolutionize  the 
appearance  of  the  country. 

The  capital  city  of  Phoenix — risen  from  the  ashes  of  a 
forgotten  people — is  the  pulsating  heart  of  the  new  life 
of  Arizona.  Here  are  modern  business  blocks,  hand- 
some public  buildings,  busy  stores,  a  promising  uni- 
versity, and  hundreds  of  beautiful  homes  resting  under 
the  shade  of  palm,  magnolia,  and  pepper-trees.  Tucson 
and  Yuma,  though  thriving  and  populous,  are  Mexican 
in  architecture  and  habits.  Prescott,  Flagstaff,  and  nu- 
merous other  communities  in  the  higher  altitude  are  the 
products  of  the  mining  industry.  But  Phoenix  is  distinct- 
ly modern,  and  almost  wholly  the  offspring  of  irrigation. 

249 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  ARID  AMERICA 

The  Salt  river  is  the  largest  tributary  of  the  Gila.  It 
has  been  the  scene  of  active  irrigation  enterprise  since 
1867,  but  particularly  during  the  last  ten  years.  It  is  an 
interesting  fact  that  the  works  first  built  followed  the 
lines  of  prehistoric  canals.  Reclamation  has  been  ex- 
tended to  both  sides  of  the  valley,  but  cultivation  is 
oldest  and  much  the  most  extensive  on  the  northern 
side,  around  Phoenix.  Here  a  number  of  canals  were 
consolidated  into  a  single  system,  the  managers  of  which 
have  made  improvements  and  extensions  year  by  year, 
and  gradually  evolved  a  work  of  great  perfection  and 
completeness. 

On  the  south  side  of  the  river  a  similar  consolidation 
has  occurred.  Here  settlement  was  begun  in  1878  by 
Mormon  colonists,  who  founded  the  charming  place  now 
known  as  Mesa  City.  There  are  several  independent 
irrigation  systems  upon  this  side  of  the  valley,  the  most 
important  of  which  is  the  Highland  Canal,  which  runs 
along  a  high  level  and  waters  thirty  thousand  acres  of 
valuable  land.  Water-power  is  obtained  in  connection 
with  the  irrigation  canals  on  both  sides  of  the  valley, 
and  electrical  power  is  applied  both  to  lighting  and 
transportation. 

Tributaries  of  the  Salt  river  flowing  from  the  moun- 
tains on  the  north,  notably  the  Rio  Verde  and  the  Agua 
Fria,  will  furnish  water  for  new  and  large  enterprises. 
Storage  is  the  feature  of  these  works,  and  reservoirs 
have  been  constructed  in  a  number  of  instances.  Both 
on  the  upper  and  lower  courses  of  the  Gila  river  im- 
portant irrigation  canals  are  planned,  and  a  number 
have  been  completed.  Much  difficulty  has  been  experi- 
enced in  building    enduring  dams  along  this   erratic 

250 


THE  REDEEMED  DESERT  IN  ARIZONA. — I.  Harvesting  Third  Crop  of 
Alfalfa,  near  Yuma.    2.  Irrigated  Barley  Crop,  Yuma  Valley. 


BUDDING  CIVILIZATION  OF  AEIZON  A 

stream.  Sudden  and  powerful  floods  sweep  down  the 
valley  during  the  season  of  melting  snows,  and  it  is  the 
nicest  engineering  problem  to  make  constructions  which 
will  stand  the  test. 

In  the  first  edition  of  this  book,  issued  in  1900,  I  said 
of  the  valleys  of  the  Gila  and  Salt  Rivers :  "  The  agri- 
cultural districts  suffer  for  lack  of  water  during  the  dry 
summer  season,  when  water  is  most  needed.  The  only 
possible  solution  of  the  problem  will  be  construction  of 
large  reservoir  systems  at  the  mountain  sources  of  the 
streams.  Nature  has  provided  phenomenal  facilities  for 
su<3h  storage  works,  but  the  opportunity  has  not  been 
utilized,  owing  to  the  large  cost  involved  and  to  the  fact 
that  no  single  company  could  afford  to  make  improve- 
ments which  would  be  equally  beneficial  to  all  who  draw 
supplies  from  these  streams.  The  work  is  of  such  im- 
portance as  to  justify  an  expenditure  of  public  money, 
especially  as  large  areas  of  public  lands  would  be  made 
habitable  in  consequence." 

The  truth  of  these  statements  has  long  been  understood 
by  well-informed  men  in  the  Territory.  Thus  Governor 
Brodie,  in  his  Annual  Report  to  the  Secretary  of  the  In- 
terior for  1904,  says:  "To-day  we  are  forced  to  admit 
that  there  is  not  a  valley  in  the  Territory  where  land  is 
available  to  the  homesteader  where  he  can  settle  down 
to  the  successful  pursuit  of  agriculturo  with  the  inde- 
pendence of  a  Mississippi  Valley  farmer.  .  .  .  With  a 
great  system  of  water  storage  established  in  Arizona  all 
public  land  susceptible  of  irrigation  will  be  at  the  disposal 
of  the  husbandman.  There  will  be  land  for  millions 
where  there  is  to-day  scarcely  enough  for  the  present 

251 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  ARID  AMERICA 

population.  Arizona  contains  more  than  ten  million 
acres  of  land  that  can  be  cultivated/' 

This  vital  need  of  water  storage  is  now  being  supplied 
by  national  enterprise  in  the  Salt  River  Valley  and  on  the 
Colorado  River.  The  interest  of  the  people  in  irrigation 
development  was  shown  by  the  enactment  of  a  law  au- 
thorizing the  bonding  of  counties  for  the  construction  of 
public  storage  works,  and  by  the  creation  of  a  Territorial 
Water-Storage  Commission,  prior  to  the  passage  of  the 
national  irrigation  law.  The  average  annual  precipita- 
tion in  the  Sal{  River  Valley  for  the  past  twenty  years 
was  only  6.9  inches,  which  makes  farming  without  irri- 
gation impossible.  The  passage  of  the  national  irriga- 
tion law  and  the  prompt  and  intelligent  action  of  the 
officials  of  the  Reclamation  Service  greatly  pleased  the 
people  of  Arizona,  who  see  in  this  development  under 
the  competent  guidance  of  the  Nation  a  lively  hope  of 
becoming  a  great  agricultural  community.  The  lands 
capable  of  being  reclaimed  are  not  alone  the  many  fertile 
valleys,  but  the  elevated  table-lands  as  well,  which  are 
very  rich  and  of  enormous  extent.  A  sum  far  in  excess 
of  the  total  amount  now  in  the  reclamation  fund  could  be 
expended  in  this  Territory,  with  the  result  of  making 
homes  for  thousands  of  prosperous  people. 

The  climate  of  Arizona  varies  widely  with  different 
altitudes.  In  those  portions  of  the  Territory  most  favor- 
able to  settlement,  including  the  Salt  River  and  Gila 
Valleys,  newcomers  find  the  summer  heat  somewhat  try- 
ing. Old  settlers,  who  know  how  to  adapt  themselves  to 
their  environment,  do  not  find  the  heat  oppressive ;  but  it 
is  something  for  a  newcomer  to  take  seriously  into  ao- 

253 


BUDDINGCIVILIZATIONOFARIZONA 

count.  In  the  more  northerly  portions  of  the  Territory, 
however,  the  climate  is  wholly  different  and  the  disad- 
vantage of  extreme  heat  far  less.  Throughout  the  whole 
of  the  Territory,  the  winters  are  delightful. 

In  the  Salt  River  Valley,  all  classes  of  fruit  have  been 
tested  sufficiently  to  furnish  reliable  conclusions  as  to 
the  range  of  production.  The  climate  is  semi-tropical 
and  the  products  similar  to  those  of  the  lowland  districts 
of  California  and  the  region  around  the  Mediterranean. 

Government  reports  show  that  the  highest  and  lowest 
temperatures  at  Phoenix  averaged  for  eight  years,  as 
follows:  November,  78^  and  42;  December,  73 J  and 
36J;  January,  65^  and  32;  February,  71 J  and 
35i;  March,  81 J  and  41;  April,  86J  and  46.  Orange 
trees  successfully  withstand  a  temperature  of  28' 
above  zero.  Hence,  it  is  no  surprise  to  find  them  grow- 
ing successfully  in  the  Salt  River  Valley,  at  Yuma,  and 
elsewhere  in  central  and  southern  Arizona.  The  deter- 
mination of  the  exact  limits  of  the  citrus  belt  is  a  nice 
problem  in  any  country.  A  certain  elevation  above  the 
river,  and  a  certain  amount  of  protection  from  the  wind 
and  from  the  rising  sun,  are  essential.  The  most  favored 
spots  are  usually  those  which  are  screened  from  the  first 
rays  of  the  morning  sun  by  a  background  of  eastern  hiUs. 
This  condition  permits  a  gradual  warming  of  the  atmos- 
phere, so  that  if  there  has  been  a  slight  frost  during  the 
night  no  serious  harm  is  done  to  fruit  or  tree. 

Wherever  oranges  can  be  grown  at  all,  the  area  suit- 
able for  their  production  is  likely  to  be  exaggerated  by 
those  who  sell  climate  by  the  acre.  While  the  orange 
districts  of  Arizona  are  not  as  yet  perfectly  defined,  there 

253 


THE   CONQUEST  OF  AEID  AMERICA 

is  no  longer  any  question  of  the  production  of  citrus 
fruit  nor  as  to  its  quality  and  the  early  date  at  which  it 
ripens.  It  anticipates  the  Southern  California  crop  in 
the  market,  though  not  the  crop  of  Northern  California, 
which  is  several  weeks  ahead  of  the  southern  product. 

Wherever  the  orange  can  be  cultivated,  the  less  tender 
semi-tropical  fruits — figs,  olives,  almonds,  pomegranates 
— ^may  be  certainly  counted  upon  to  grow  even  more 
surely  and  over  a  large  area.  The  largest  fig  orchard  in 
the  United  States,  and  one  of  the  largest  in  the  world,  is 
located  in  the  Salt  River  Valley.  This  industry  has  not 
yet  proven  profitable,  either  in  Arizona  or  California, 
speaking  broadly,  for  the  reason  that  our  people  have  not 
all  mastered  the  art  of  curing  and  packing,  though  much 
progress  has  been  made  at  Fresno.  The  other  products 
mentioned  are  thoroughly  successful.  So  also  are  the 
finest  qualities  of  raisin,  wine,  and  table  grapes,  and  of 
the  deciduous  fruits,  such  as  peaches,  apricots,  prunes, 
pears,  and  apples.  Yuma  lays  down  table  grapes  in  San 
Francisco  before  the  California  product  is  in  the  market. 
With  better  railroad  facilities  and  rates,  Arizona  would 
be  a  strong  competitor  of  Florida  and  the  West  Indies  in 
the  shipment  of  early  vegetables  to  eastern  and  northern 
markets.  At  the  government  experiment  station  near 
Tempe  is  a  date  orchard  of  eleven  acres,  and  there  are 
strong  hopes  that  this  new  industry  will  take  root  and 
prosper  throughout  the  southern  portion  of  the  arid 
region. 

The  major  portion  of  the  irrigated  land  is  tilled  in 
large  farms  devoted  to  grasses  and  cereals.  Alfalfa  is 
the  favorite  fodder  crop,  and  the  valleys  are  great  feed- 

254 


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i 

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jBfed^-^.      •ill 

jti     J|mB 

11  ■vJJ 

^'vS^Bn 

BUDDING  CIVILIZATION  OF  ARIZONA 

ing  grounds  for  cattle,  horses,  hogs,  and  sheep.  While 
stock-raising  is  important,  it  is  in  a  less  prosperous  con- 
dition than  formerly,  on  account  of  prolonged  droughts, 
especially  that  of  the  year  1903,  which  caused  great  loss. 
As  irrigation  development  progresses,  the  raising  of  live 
stock  on  large  areas  will  give  way  to  the  intensive  culti- 
vation of  small  areas,  to  which  the  conditions  of  soil  and 
climate  are  extremely  favorable. 

Ten  acres  in  southern  Arizona  constitutes  a  good-sized 
farm.  Variously  planted  to  vegetables,  small  fruits, 
orchards,  and  grass,  and  cultivated  by  the  most  modern 
methods,  such  a  farm  should  yield  a  far  better  living  and 
make  a  surer  provision  for  old  age  than  one  hundred  acres 
in  the  Eastern  or  Middle  States,  which  depend  upon  rain- 
fall, and  consequently  produce  the  cheaper  class  of  crops. 

Arizona  is  very  rich  in  minerals  and  its  development 
has  brought  a  considerable  degree  of  prosperity  in  the 
past  few  years.  Copper  is  now  the  principal  product, 
having  made  the  phenomenal  growth  of  from  two  mil- 
lion pounds  in  1880  to  two  hundred  and  thirty  million 
pounds  in  1904.  In  1903,  the  Territory  held  third  place 
in  copper  production,  being  exceeded  only  by  Michigan 
and  Montana ;  it  now  claims  the  second  place,  and,  if  the 
great  Cananea  mines,  situated  a  short  distance  over  the 
boundary  line  in  Mexico  and  virtually  dependent  upon 
Arizona  for  their  development,  were  included,  it  would 
be  entitled  to  first  place.  The  value  of  the  product  for 
1904  was  nearly  thirty  million  dollars,  and  the  larger 
portion  of  it  was  manufactured  in  the  Territory.  The 
production  of  gold,  silver,  and  lead  is  also  large,  and 
rapidly  increasing. 

255 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  ARID  AMERICA 

Although  Arizona  is  popularly  regarded  as  a  treeless 
region,  it  counts  among  its  natural  resources  one  of  the 
largest  forests  in  the  world.  This  is  the  "  MogoUon 
Forest/'  covering  an  area  of  ten  thousand  square  miles. 
There  are  eight  forest  reserves  in  the  Territory. 

An  interesting  industrial  development  of  late  years  is 
the  raising  of  ostriches.  In  the  Salt  River  Valley,  near 
Phoenix,  it  has  been  demonstrated  that  they  will  thrive 
and  produce  feathers  profitably.  There  are  now  more 
than  sixteen  hundred  birds  on  this  farm,  which  feed  con- 
tentedly in  the  alfalfa  pastures. 

Lacking  nothing  in  general  advantages,  Arizona  has 
suffered  from  the  popular  belief  that  there  is  a  deficiency 
of  the  higher  forms  of  industrial  and  social  development 
which  have  made  portions  of  California  the  paradise  of 
the  common  people  and  which  are  now  rapidly  shaping 
the  institutions  of  the  arid  region.  That  this  impression 
is  passing  away  is  evidenced  by  the  fact  that  Arizona's 
population  increased  104.9  per  cent,  between  1890  and 
1900,  and  is  still  growing  rapidly.  The  broad  founda- 
tions of  an  intense  economic  life  have  been  well  and  sub- 
stantially laid,  and  the  superstructure  is  rapidly  rising. 
As  the  work  progresses  more  and  more,  it  will  be  under- 
stood how  little  the  country  has  been  appreciated,  and  it 
would  be  rash  to  attempt  to  predict  its  future  greatness. 

The  people  of  Arizona  have  been  drawn  from  many 
different  sources  and  from  more  than  one  race,  but  the 
pushing  American  element  is  distinctly  dominant.  While 
there  are  many  lower-class  Mexicans,  they  are  much  less 
numerous  here  than  in  New  Mexico,  and  less  widely  dif- 
fused over  the  Territory.     The  Indians,  who  are  seen 

256 


BUDDING  CIVILIZATION  OF  ARIZONA 

everywhere,  even  in  the  best  settled  districts,  are  inoffen- 
sive and  usuaUy  industrious.  Like  the  Mexican  peons, 
they  are  useful  laborers  in  the  simpler  agricultural  and 
manufacturing  tasks.  There  are  many  tribes,  some  of 
which  were  warlike  in  recent  years,  but  these  are  now 
kept  closely  confined  to  their  reservations  and  no  longer 
constitute  a  menace  to  settlement. 

Arizona  has  developed  a  spirit  of  intense  local  pride 
which  bodes  well  for  its  future  greatness.  It  is  a  good 
recommendation  for  any  country  when  those  who  know  it 
best  exhibit  the  most  confidence  in  its  future.  It  is  to 
be  hoped  that  the  energetic  and  optimistic  people  of  Ari- 
zona may  realize  their  high  ambitions,  including  their 
laudable  desire  for  statehood. 

The  settler  intending  to  go  to  Arizona  will  find  his 
best  opportunities  under  the  progressive  development  of 
the  United  States  Reclamation  Service.  The  oppor- 
tunities for  private  enterprise,  except  to  large  capital, 
are  practically  exhausted. 


267 


part  ^ourtb 

THE  TRIUMPH  OF  THE  MOVEMENT 

**  The  passage  of  the  National  Irrigation  Law  is  one  of  the 
great  steps  not  only  in  the  progress  of  the  United  States,  but  of 
all  mankind.  It  is  the  beginning  of  an  achievement  bo  great 
that  we  hesitate  to  predict  the  outcome." — Theodore  Roosevelt. 

"It  is  men  with  hearts  who  have  done  it ;  men  with  imagi- 
nation, illumination,  prophecy,  conscience.  The  fact  that  it 
pays  is  important,  but  it  is  secondary.  If  the  business  argument 
could  not  have  been  sustained,  the  movement  would  have  died, 
but  without  the  moral  force  the  business  argument  would  have 
shriveled  like  a  leaf  in  the  sand.  The  architects  and  builders 
of  this  great  plan  of  redemption  are  and  have  been  men  of  heart 
as  well  as  brain,  men  of  tact  and  of  love  for  humanity,  as  well 
as  men  of  firm  convictions  and  shrewd  business  sense,  men  who 
look  on  an  acre  of  land  or  a  gold  coin  merely  as  a  token  to  be 
used  for  the  betterment  of  humanity." — El  Paao,  Texas,  Herald, 
June  17, 1906, 


9B9 


JOHN  WESLEY  POWELL. — First  Scientific  Explorer  of  the  Arid  Region. 


y 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  RISE  OP  A  NEW  CAUSE 

The  true  history  of  irrigation  in  America  would  in- 
volve a  comprehensive  study  of  the  life  of  the  Western 
people  during  the  past  two  generations,  with  a  study 
of  certain  communities  which  trace  their  civil- 
ization to  a  period  much  more  remote.  The  facts  for 
such  a  history  would  be  found  in  the  record  of  explo- 
ration and  colonization,  in  the  expansion  of  pioneer 
camps  into  villages,  cities,  and  States,  in  the  evolution  of 
a  multiplicity  of  laws  and  judicial  decisions  concerning 
land  and  water.  For  irrigation  is  the  life-blood  of  insti- 
tutions in  the  Western  half  of  the  continent  and  its  his- 
tory is,  in  a  marked  degree,  the  history  of  the  people 
themselves.  In  this  chapter  the  subject  will  be  sketched 
in  relation  to  one  aspect  only, — ^the  birth  and  progress  of 
the  organized  movement  which  finally  led  to  the  adoption 
of  a  new  policy  of  internal  improvement  by  the  United 
States. 

First  on  the  roll  of  irrigation  champions  stands  the 
name  of  John  Wesley  Powell.  He  was  a  soldier,  a  poet, 
a  scientist,  a  lover  of  his  kind,  but  in  no  sense  a  man  of 
practical  commercial  instincts.  It  is  worth  while  to  note 
this  fact,  because  the  West  owes  much  to  men  of  another 
type — ^men  who  saw  the  opportunity  to  make  great  for- 
tunes in  the  development  of  the  country  and  whose  busi- 

261 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  ARID  AMERICA 

ness  enterprises  were  conceived  and  executed  upon  so 
magnificent  a  scale  that  they  are  entitled  to  remembrance 
among  the  builders  of  empire.  Collis  P.  Huntington, 
James  J.  Hill,  William  J.  Palmer,  William  A.  Clark, 
and  a  hundred  others,  wielded  large  capital,  built  rail- 
roads, opened  mines,  and  prepared  the  way  for  millions. 
Brigham  Young  organized  a  host  of  settlers,  turned  the 
mountain  streams  upon  the  soil  of  the  desert,  directed  the 
growth  of  towns,  industries,  and  farming  communities. 
These,  and  ten  thousand  men  of  lesser  achievement,  were 
of  the  practical  sort  indispensable  to  the  work  of  trans- 
forming a  wilderness  into  a  seat  of  civilization. 

Major  Powell  was  entirely  different  and,  perhaps,  the 
most  distinguished  type  of  another  class  which  has  con- 
tributed in  its  own  way  to  the  conquest  of  Arid  America. 
He  did  not  invest  money,  but  he  invested  ideas.  He  was 
not  interested  in  making  a  fortune  for  himself,  but  in 
making  a  fortune  for  the  Nation,  for  humanity.  He 
saw  the  West  with  the  eyes  of  a  prophet  and,  with  splen- 
did imagination,  beheld  not  only  the  opportunity  which 
awaited  a  great  people,  but  the  measures  which  must  be 
adopted  to  take  best  advantage  of  the  opportunity.  He 
was  the  kind  of  man  who  is  commonly  regarded  as  an 
enthusiast  and  a  visionary  until  his  dreams  come  true — 
the  kind  of  man,  as  Elbert  Hubbard  said  of  another, 
doomed  "  to  become  rotting  logs  which  will  nourish  banks 
of  violets."  It  should  not  be  inferred  that  he  accom- 
plished nothing  in  his  lifetime.  On  the  contrary,  he 
accomplished  much,  but  it  was  in  the  nature  of  preli- 
minary work.  The  great  results  he  was  not  given  to  see 
with  mortal  eyes. 

263 


THE  RISE  OF  A  NEW  CAUSE 

After  the  Civil  War,  in  which  he  had  borne  a  conspicu- 
ous part,  Major  Powell  became  geographer,  geologist, 
ethnologist,  and  explorer  of  the  arid  region.  His  daring 
descent  of  the  Colorado  River  is  one  of  the  historical 
episodes  of  the  Far  Southwest,  but  it  was  no  deed  of  idle 
heroism.  He  was  engaged  in  looking  the  country  in  the 
face,  that  he  might  know  what  it  held  for  the  future  of 
men.  His  report  entitled,  "  The  Lands  of  the  Arid 
Region,"  was  one  of  those  rare  public  documents  which 
becomes  classic  literature.  His  preliminary  work  in  the 
examination  of  arid  public  lands  was  carried  on  under 
the  auspices  of  the  Smithsonian  Institution  and,  later, 
under  an  organization  or  bureau  of  the  Department  of 
the  Interior  known  as  the  United  States  Geographical 
and  Geological  Survey  of  the  Rocky  Mountain  Region. 
In  1879  this  and  other  surveys  maintained  by  the  various 
departments  of  the  Government  were  discontinued,  and 
in  their  place  a  single  bureau,  the  present  United  States 
Geological  Survey,  was  created.  Clarence  King  was  the 
first  Director,  but  he  was  succeeded  after  a  few  months 
by  Major  Powell,  who  then  organized  the  work  that  laid 
the  foundation  of  the  great  irrigation  development  which 
has  transpired,  and  is  to  transpire  upon  a  much  larger 
■scale  in  the  future,  in  the  Western  States  and  Territories. 

The  first  requirement  of  progress  was  exact  informa- 
tion. It  was  necessary  that  the  public  lands  should  be 
classified,  that  the  streams  should  be  measured  and 
mapped,  that  reservoir  sites  should  be  discovered  and  ex- 
plored, and  that  the  whole  physical  basis  of  the  region, 
including  its  climate,  should  be  reduced  to  a  matter  of 
scientific  knowledge.    This  meant  nothing  less  than  the 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  ARID  AMERICA 

preparation  of  a  complete  topographical  map,  drawn 
in  such  detail  that  it  should  show  all  the  elevations  by 
means  of  contours,  the  location  of  streams,  towns,  roads, 
railroads,  canals,  isolated  houses,  and  boundaries  of 
States,  counties,  and  towns.  For  a  quarter  of  a  century 
this  work  has  gone  forward  until,  at  last,  the  secrets  of 
the  wilderness  have  been 'brought  to  light  and  the  way 
prepared  for  its  occupation  by  the  hosts  of  civilization. 
The  results  are  preserved  in  a  number  of  annual  reports 
covering  what  is  populariy  known  as  "the  Powell  Irri- 
gation Survey.^' 

In  1887  Congress  recognized  the  importance  of  the 
investigation  in  its  relation  to  practical  progress  and 
large  appropriations  were  made  for  the  study  of  specific 
reservoir  sites.  In  1889  a  committee  of  the  United  States 
Senate,  headed  by  Senator  Stewart  of  Nevada,  made  a 
personal  investigation  of  the  arid  region  by  means  of  an 
extended  tour,  and  gave  public  hearings  at  numerous 
points. 

Up  to  1890  there  was  nothing  which  could  be  regarded 
as  a  public  sentiment  in  support  of  irrigation  as  a  broad 
economic  movement  and,  much  less,  an3rthing  in  the 
nature  of  organized  public  sentiment.  Neither  was  there 
a  popular  literature  to  bring  the  matter  to  the  attention 
of  the  masses.  Irrigation  was  an  unpleasant  word,  re- 
pellent and  depressing.  The  word  "arid"  was  synony- 
mous with  worthlessness.  Scientific  men  like  Major 
Powell,  social  reformers  like  Richard  J.  Hinton,  and  a 
few  members  of  Congress  who  urged  appropriations  to 
assist  Western  development,  were  not  taken  seriously  by 
the  country  at  large.    It  was  felt  that  they  were  ahead 

264 


THE  RISE  OF  A  NEW  CAUSE 

of  their  time  and  that  at  best  there  could  be  nothing  but 
a  sectional  interest  in  the  matter  with  which  they  dealt. 
There  was  no  appreciation  of  the  magnitude  of  the  op- 
portunity awaiting  the  Nation  in  the  West,  nor  of  the 
social  and  political  significance  of  the  work  which  must 
ultimately  be  done. 

Such  was  the  situation  when  the  region  of  the  Great 
Plains  was  overtaken  by  the  drought  of  1890,  a  calamity 
so  deep  and  widespread  that  it  staggered  even  the  optim- 
ism of  the  West.  While  it  was  known  and  frankly  ac- 
knowledged that  irrigation  was  necessary  in  many  locali- 
ties west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  the  men  of  the  semi- 
arid  plains  clung  stubbornly  to  the  belief  that,  in  some 
mysterious  manner,  rainfall  increased  with  railroad 
building,  settlement,  and  the  cultivation  of  the  land. 
This  delusion  was  effectually  dispelled  by  the  great 
drought,  as  related  in  a  previous  chapter.  The  psycho- 
logical moment  had  come  for  the  rise  of  a  new  cause 
which  should  take  hold  of  the  popular  heart  and  go  on, 
by  a  process  of  gradual  unfoldment,  until  it  became  per- 
haps the  greatest  constructive  movement  of  its  time.  Of 
this  new  and  momentous  epoch  in  Western  history  I  am 
able  to  speak  at  first  hand,  since  I  can  say,  in  the  words 
of  the  ancient  chronicler,  "all  of  which  I  saw,  and  a 
part  of  which  I  was."  * 

*  "  Popular  interest  in  irrigation  was  greatly  stimulated  by 
the  discussion  arising  out  of  the  Powell  Irrigation  Survey  and 
the  controversies  over  the  report  of  the  Senate  Committee  on 
Irrigation.  This  led  finally  to  the  holding  of  a  series  of  national 
irrigation  congresses,  the  prime  mover  in  which  was  Mr.  Wm. 
E.  Smythe,  of  San  Diego,  Cal.  The  first  was  held  in  Salt  Lake 
City,  Utah,  September  15  to  17,  1891."— Firse  Anntial  Report  of 
the  United  States  Reclamation  Service, 


THE   CONQUEST  OF  ARID  AMERICA 

In  1890  I  was  an  editorial  writer  on  the  Omaha  Bee, 
under  that  strong  and  able  leader  of  Nebraska  public 
opinion,  Edward  Rosewater.  During  the  previous  sum- 
mer I  had  made  a  brief  trip  to  the  Maxwell  land  grant 
in  New  Mexico  and  for  the  first  time  saw  men  engaged 
in  turning  water  upon  land  to  make  good  the  deficiencies 
of  rainfall.  I  suppose  I  had  heard  or  read  the  word 
^'irrigation,"  though  I  have  no  recollection  of  it.  Cer- 
tainly, the  word  meant  nothing  to  me  until  the  drought 
struck  Nebraska  a  year  later.  Then  the  thought  oc- 
curred to  me  that  the  several  fine  streams  flowing  through 
the  state  might  be  employed  to  excellent  advantage. 
Men  were  shooting  their  horses  and  abandoning  their 
farms,  within  sight  of  these  streams.  There  were  the 
soil,  the  sunshine,  and  the  waters,  but  the  people  did  not 
understand  the  secret  of  prosperity,  even  with  such  broad 
hints  before  their  eyes. 

I  thought  of  the  thrifty  orchards  and  gardens  I  had 
seen  on  the  Las  Animas  and  the  Vermejo  a  few  hundred 
miles  farther  southwest,  and  when  Mr.  Rosewater  di- 
rected me  to  write  editorials  urging  the  public  to  con- 
tribute money,  food,  and  seed  for  the  drought-stricken 
farmers  of  Nebraska,  I  suggested  that  these  should  be 
supplemented  by  a  series  of  papers  dealing  with  the 
possibilities  of  irrigation.  He  gave  me  permission  to  do 
so  on  condition  that  I  would  sign  the  articles  myself, 
as  it  was  then  considered  little  less  than  a  libel  to  say 
that  irrigation  was  needed  in  that  part  of  the  country. 

How  many  lives  those  articles  influenced,  or  are  even 
yet  to  influence  through  the  forces  they  set  in  motion,  I 
do  not  know;  but  they  changed  my  life  completely.     I 

266 


THE  RISE  OF  A  NEW  CAUSE 

had  taken  the  cross  of  a  new  crusade.  To  my  mind, 
irrigation  seemed  the  biggest  thing  in  the  world.  It  was 
not  merely  a  matter  of  ditches  and  acres,  but  a  philos- 
ophy, a  religion,  and  a  programme  of  practical  statesman- 
ship rolled  into  one.  There  was  apparently  no  such 
thing  as  ever  getting  to  the  bottom  of  the  subject,  for  it 
expanded  in  all  directions  and  grew  in  importance  with 
each  unfoldment.  Of  course,  all  this  was  not  realized 
at  first,  yet  from  the  beginning  I  was  deeply  impressed 
with  the  magnitude  of  the  work  that  had  fallen  to  my 
hand  and  knew  that  I  must  cut  loose  from  all  other 
interests  and  endeavor  to  rouse  the  Nation  to  a  realizing 
sense  of  its  duty  and  opportunity. 

The  first  result  of  the  articles  in  the  Bee  was  a  series 
of  irrigation  conventions  in  western  Nebraska,  beginning 
with  the  one  at  Culbertson,  the  seat  of  Hitchcock  County. 
These  county  gatherings  led  to  a  state  convention  at 
Lincoln,  and  the  state  convention  made  me  chairman  of  a 
committee  to  arrange  for  a  National  Irrigation  Congress, 
which  was  held  a  few  months  later  at  Salt  Lake,  within 
sight  of  the  historic  ditch  on  City  Creek  where  English- 
speaking  men  began  the  conquest  of  the  desert. 

I  resigned  my  comfortable  place  on  the  Bee,  launched 
The  Irrigation  Age  (the  first  journal  of  its  kind  in  the 
world,  so  far  as  I  know),  and  went  forth  to  do  what  I 
could.  It  was  my  rare  good  fortune  to  find  a  life-work, 
while  yet  on  the  sunny  side  of  thirty,  to  which  I  could 
give  my  heart  and  soul  with  all  a  young  man's  enthusi- 
asm. 

It  would  be  entirely  erroneous  to  give  the  impression 
that  the  Irrigation  Congress  began  its  history  by  advo- 


THE  CONQUEST  OF  ARID  AMERICA 

eating  the  policy  of  improvement  which  finally  prevailed. 
It  was  clearly  realized  that  there  was  an  enormous  work 
to  be  done,  and  that  this  work  could  not  be  accomplished 
under  laws  then  in  existence  nor  by  exclusive  dependence 
upon  private  enterprise.  But  in  1891  there  was  no  such 
sentiment  for  public  ownership  as  now  prevails.  Specu- 
lation in  water  was  considered  as  legitimate  as  specula- 
tion in  land  or  mines.  Moreover,  it  seemed  scarcely 
conceivable  that  the  Nation  could  be  interested,  within 
the  lifetime  of  men  then  active  in  the  West,  to  the 
extent  of  building  reservoirs  and  canals  and  executing 
a  great  plan  of  colonizing  arid  lands.  The  most  that 
was  then  hoped  for  was  that  Congress  could  be  induced 
to  cede  the  lands  to  the  several  States  and  Territories  in 
which  they  were  situated,  and  that  when  land  and  water 
were  thus  brought  under  one  jurisdiction,  laws  could  be 
devised  to  facilitate  development.  Each  State  would 
then  be  left  to  frame  its  own  policy  and  the  rivalry  which 
would  naturally  ensue  would  inaugurate  an  era  of  tre- 
mendous activity. 

This  view  was  so  generally  entertained  that  Governor 
Arthur  L.  Thomas,  in  issuing  his  invitation  for  the 
meeting  in  Utah,  set  it  forth  in  his  formal  call.  The 
chief  object  of  the  convention  was  to  consider  the  cession 
of  the  arid  lands  to  the  States.  After  several  days  dis- 
cussion, in  which  the  leading  men  of  the  West  partici- 
pated, the  plan  was  approved  without  a  dissenting  vote, 
although  J.  W.  Gregory,  a  delegate  from  Kansas,  had 
pointed  out  certain  perils  inherent  in  the  policy,  in  a 
speech  which  commanded  attention. 

The    Salt   Lake    Congress   precipitated    a    discussion 


THE  RISE  OF  A  NEW  CAUSE 

throughout  the  country  which  resulted  in  the  gradual 
growth  of  deep  distrust  in  the  plan  of  cession.  It  was 
strongly  opposed  by  the  leading  newspapers  of  Cali- 
fornia, on  the  ground  that  all  previous  experience  of  the 
kind  showed  that  the  Western  States  would  not  deal 
wisely  or  honestly  with  such  a  grant.  It  was  argued 
that  the  lands  could  not  be  utilized  without  a  vast  ex- 
penditure of  capital,  and  that  the  inevitable  way  of  ob- 
taining this  capital  would  be  through  the  gift  of  the 
public  lands  to  private  interests,  which  would  convert 
them  into  great  estates.  In  a  word,  the  movement  was 
denounced  as  a  gigantic  scheme  of  land-grabbing,  though 
it  undoubtedly  represented  the  best  thought  of  the 
Western  people  at  that  time.  It  was  seen  that  something 
must  be  done;  it  was  perfectly  obvious  that  the  Nation 
would  do  nothing  involving  the  expenditure  of  large 
sums  from  its  own  treasury;  it  was  believed  that  if  the 
States  could  obtain  the  land  they  would  devise  a  means 
of  preparing  them  for  settlement.  However,  the  opposi- 
tion was  strong  enough  to  hold  the  movement  in  check 
and  to  create  an  interest  in  the  discussion  which  was 
doubtless  indispensable  to  progress  of  any  kind. 

The  Second  Irrigation  Congress  was  held  at  Los 
Angeles,  California,  in  1893,  and  gained  great  dis- 
tinction from  its  international  character.  Delegates  were 
present  from  many  foreign  countries  and  the  tone  of 
discussion  was  entirely  different  from  that  at  the  Salt 
Lake  meeting,  two  years  previous.  The  keynote  of  the 
official  pronouncement  was  that  "the  irrigation  question 
is  national  in  its  essence."  Lionel  A.  Sheldon,  chair- 
man of  the  committee  on  resolutions,  aroused  extraor- 

269 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  AKID  AMEKICA 

dinary  enthusiasm  when  he  declared  his  opinion  that  the 
arid  lands  would  never  be  reclaimed  until  the  Nation 
itself  built  the  reservoirs  and  canals.  But  the  convention 
wisely  recognized  that  public  opinion  was  not  ready  to 
support  a  specific  proposal  along  this  line,  not  even 
public  opinion  in  the  West.  Consequently,  it  proceeded 
to  organize  conmiissions  from  its  own  membership  in 
every  State  and  Territory  of  the  arid  region,  to  canvass 
public  sentiment  and  frame  a  plan  for  presentation  at 
the  next  Congress. 

The  third  meeting  was  held  at  Denver,  Colorado,  in 
1894.  The  State  commissions  were  unable  to  agree  upon 
any  comprehensive  policy  to  be  urged  upon  the  lawmakers 
at  Washington.  But  they  advocated  four  steps  of  prog- 
ress :  first,  the  reform  and  unification  of  local  water  laws 
for  the  several  States;  second,  the  repeal  of  the  desert 
land  law;  third,  increased  appropriations  for  the  in- 
vestigation of  water  supplies;  fourth,  the  creation  of  a 
national  commission  to  devise  plans  for  the  reclamation 
of  arid  lands.  Subsequent  sessions  of  the  Irrigation 
Congress,  held  at  Albuquerque,  New  Mexico,  in  1895 ;  at 
Phoenix,  Arizona,  in  1896;  at  Lincoln,  Nebraska,  in 
1897 ;  at  Cheyenne,  Wyoming,  in  1898 ;  and  at  Missoula, 
Montana,  in  1899 ;  followed  the  same  lines,  but  with  grow- 
ing insistence  on  the  national  obligation  to  make  the  pub- 
lic domain  fit  for  settlement  by  direct  action  of  some  kind. 

While  the  cession  movement  inaugurated  at  Salt  Lake 
had  lost  most  of  its  force.  Senator  Warren,  of  Wyoming, 
introduced  a  bill  to  carry  it  into  effect.  It  was  not 
seriously  considered  by  Congress.  His  colleague.  Sen- 
ator Carey,  succeeded  in  passing  a  bill  granting  a  million 

270 


■rk     < 


THE  EISE  OF  A  NEW  CAUSE 

acres  to  each  of  the  States.  Several  accepted  the  gift 
and  considerable  development  resulted  from  the  policy, 
the  common  method  being  to  grant  to  corporations  the 
right  to  irrigate  the  land  and  dispose  of  it  to  settlers. 

If  the  year  1879  is  notable  in  irrigation  history  be- 
cause of  the  publication  of  Major  Powell's  report  on 
"The  Lands  of  the  Arid  Region,"  and  the  year  1891  be- 
cause of  the  organization  of  the  National  Irrigation 
Congress,  the  year  1897  is  memorable  because  of  new 
forces  which  came  into  it  and  exerted  a  powerful  influ- 
ence in  shaping  events.  In  the  latter  year  Captain 
Hiram  M.  Chittenden,  of  the  Corps  of  Engineers,  U.  S. 
A.,  published  his  report  on  "  Reservoirs  in  the  Arid 
Region.^'  He  had  formerly  been  in  charge  of  govern- 
ment works  in  the  Yellowstone  National  Park  and  on 
important  Western  rivers.  He  had  delved  deep  into 
the  history  of  all  the  movements  of  population  in  the 
Far  West  and  given  much  thought  to  the  future  civiliza- 
tion of  the  region.  He  looked  upon  the  subject  with  the 
mind  of  a  man  trained  in  the  government  school  of 
thought.  Assigned  to  the  study  of  reservoir  problems 
on  certain  rivers  of  the  West,  he  recommended  that  the 
Government  should  acquire  full  title  and  jurisdiction 
to  any  reservoir  site  which  it  might  improve,  and  full 
right  to  the  water  necessary  to  fill  the  reservoir;  also 
that  it  should  build,  own,  and  operate  the  works,  holding 
the  stored  waters  absolutely  free  for  public  use  under 
local  regulations. 

The  Chittenden  report  represented  the  break  of  day. 
Here  was  a  clear  suggestion  of  a  workable  plan,  coming 
with  the  force  of  a  recommendation  from  a  distinguished 

271 


THE   CONQUEST  OF  ARID  AMERICA 

engineer  in  the  War  Department.  What  was  needed  at 
this  juncture  was  an  organized  propaganda,  alive,  tire- 
less, sleepless.  The  Irrigation  Congress  had  done  a 
great  work  and  years  of  usefulness  were  yet  reserved  to 
it.  But  it  had  no  funds  or  paid  officers.  It  met  but 
once  a  year  at  widely  separated  points  and  always  with  a 
different  membership.  The  time  had  now  come  when 
the  cause  required  a  working  organism  quite  as  effective 
as  that  of  a  church,  a  political  party,  or  a  great  business 
enterprise. 

This  need  was  met  by  George  H.  Maxwell  and  his 
National  Irrigation  Association,  the  latter  formed  at 
Wichita,  Kansas,  in  1897,  at  the  close  of  a  meeting  of 
the  Trans-Mississippi  Congress.  Mr.  Maxwell  was  an 
energetic  young  lawyer  of  California,  with  a  remarkable 
talent  for  organization  and  a  gift  of  forceful  and  elo- 
quent speech.  He  was  one  of  the  numerous  converts  of 
the  Irrigation  Congress,  which  he  joined  at  the  Phoenix 
convention  in  the  previous  year.  He  determined  to 
abandon  his  law  practice  and  devote  himself  exclusively 
to  the  irrigation  propaganda  and  the  solution  of  other 
social  problems  which,  as  he  clearly  foresaw,  must  go 
hand-in-hand  with  the  great  scheme  of  reclaiming  mil- 
lions of  acres  of  arid  lands.  The  National  Irrigation 
Association  was  not  to  supplant,  but  to  strengthen  and 
supplement,  the  pioneer  institution,  the  National  Irri- 
gation Congress. 

Mr.  Maxwell  saw  that  nothing  could  be  done  without 
a  promotion  fund.  There  must  be  offices  in  leading 
cities,  periodicals  and  newspaper  bureaus,  and  constant 
activity  on  the  platform.    Who  should  finance  the  great 

878 


THE  RISE  OF  A  NEW  CAUSE 

undertaking?  Why  not  the  numerous  industrial  and 
transportation  interests,  who  would  be  the  inevitable 
beneficiaries  of  new  agricultural  districts  throughout 
the  Western  half  of  the  continent  and  the  resulting  move- 
ment of  people  and  products?  Mr.  Maxwell  believed 
that  if  the  managers  of  these  enterprises  understood  their 
true  interests,  they  would  give  liberal  support  to  a  work 
of  this  kind.  He  proceeded  to  convince  them  of  the  fact, 
and  was  thus  enabled  to  carry  on  the  propaganda  with  a 
vigor  and  success  unprecedented  in  the  history  of  the 
movement.  He  found  an  able  and  indefatigable  lieu- 
tenant in  Mr.  C.  B.  Boothe,  a  prominent  merchant  of 
Los  Angeles,  California. 

The  Ninth  Irrigation  Congress  assembled  at  Chicago  in  the 
autumn  of  1900  and  adopted  ringing  resolutions  in  favor  of  a 
comprehensive  national  system  for  the  storage  of  floods  and  the 
reclamation  of  public  lands.  It  demanded  the  abolition  of  water 
monopoly,  insisting  that  water  be  made  appurtenant  to  the  land 
irrigated  and  that  beneficial  use  be  the  basis,  the  measure,  and 
the  limit  of  the  right. 

The  politicians  were  not  slow  to  recognize  the  appear- 
ance of  a  new  issue  on  the  horizon.  Thus  in  1900,  nine 
years  after  the  first  Irrigation  Congress  at  Salt  Lake 
and  three  years  subsequent  to  the  Chittenden  report  and 
the  formation  of  the  National  Irrigation  Association,  the 
three  great  parties  placed  the  following  planks  in  their 
platforms : 

Republican  Platform. 

In  further  pursuance  of  the  constant  policy  of  the  Republican 
party  to  provide  free  homes  on  the  public  domain,  we  recom- 
mend adequate  national  legislation  to  reclaim  the  arid  lands  of 
T  273 


THE   CONQUEST   OF   ARID  AMERICA 

the  United  States,  reserving  control  of  the  distribution  of  water 
for  irrigation  to  the  respective  States  and  Territories. 

Democratic  Platform. 

We  favor  an  intelligent  system  of  improving  the  arid  lands  of 
the  West,  storing  the  waters  for  the  purposes  of  irrigation,  and 
the  holding  of  such  lands  for  actual  settlers. 

Silver  Republican  Platform. 

We  believe  the  National  Government  should  lend  every  aid, 
encouragement,  and  assistance  toward  the  reclamation  of  the 
arid  lands  of  the  United  States,  and  to  that  end  we  are  in  favor 
of  a  comprehensive  survey  thereof,  and  an  immediate  ascertain- 
ment of  the  water  supply  available  for  such  reclamation,  and 
we  believe  it  to  be  the  duty  of  the  general  government  to 
provide  for  the  construction  of  storage  reservoirs  and  irrigation 
works,  so  that  the  water  supply  of  the  arid  region  may  be 
utilized  to  the  greatest  possible  extent  in  the  interests  of  the 
people  while  preserving  all  rights  of  the  State. 

The  first  stage  of  the  battle  had  been  won.  Irriga- 
tion was  squarely  before  the  American  people  as  a  ques- 
tion which  must  be  dealt  with.  It  was  no  longer  merely 
the  dream  of  enthusiasts,  but  a  subject  which  thundered 
at  the  door  of  Congress  and  demanded  the  attention  of 
practical  statesmanship. 


274 


CHAPTER  n 

ON  THE  ANVIL  OP  CONGRESS 

For  many  years  prior  to  the  indorsement  of  a  na- 
tional irrigation  policy  by  the  great  political  parties, 
Western  Senators  and  Representatives  had  been  in  the 
habit  of  introducing  bills  aiming  at  the  reclamation  of 
arid  lands  in  their  own  States  or  districts.  These  meas- 
ures were  fruitless,  not  only  because  the  East  had  not 
yet  given  its  assent  to  this  form  of  internal  improvement, 
but  because  it  was  impossible  to  unite  the  West  in  favor 
of  appropriations  for  any  particular  locality.  Each 
neighborhood  stood  ready  to  cheer  "  for  the  old  flag  and 
an  appropriation,"  but  could  evoke  no  enthusiasm  when 
it  was  proposed  to  spend  the  appropriation  in  some 
other  neighborhood. 

The  West  had  not  learned  its  lesson  thoroughly  when 
the  Fifty-sixth  Congress  assembled  for  its  final  session, 
on  December  3,  1900.  It  had  not  devised  a  way  to 
overcome  Eastern  and  Southern  opposition  to  direct 
appropriations  nor  to  unite  its  own  members  on  a  single, 
comprehensive  plan  of  development.  President  McKin- 
ley  made  no  mention  of  irrigation  in  his  message.  On 
the  very  first  day  of  the  session,  Representative  John  F. 
Shafroth  of  Colorado  introduced  a  bill  calling  for  an 
appropriation  of  thirteen  million  dollars  for  the  reclama- 
tion of  arid  lands.     It  was  not  a  local  bill,  but  it  pro- 

275 


THE  CONQUEST  OF  ARID  AMERICA 

posed  to  take  the  money  straight  from  the  national 
treasury,  conceding  nothing  to  the  prejudices  of  the 
East  or  the  South  on  that  subject.  There  was,  therefore, 
no  hope  of  its  success.  Representatives  Newlands  of 
Nevada  and  Bell  of  Colorado  followed  with  bills  aiming 
at  peculiar  benefits  for  their  own  States.  These  meas- 
ures were  impossible,  because  the  West  would  not  unite 
on  them. 

On  January  26,  1901,  the  national  irrigation  cause 
saw  its  first  real  daylight  in  the  halls  of  Congress.  It 
was  upon  that  memorable  date  that  Francis  G.  New- 
lands,  then  Representative  and  now  Senator,  from 
Nevada,  introduced  the  first  of  a  series  of  measures,  each 
an  improvement  upon  its  predecessor,  but  all  based  upon 
the  same  fundamental  principles  and  all  widely  discussed 
by  press,  public,  and  law-makers,  under  the  general 
title  of  "  the  Newlands  bill.''  A  comparison  of  the  orig- 
inal measure  of  January  26  with  the  present  law  as  it 
stands  upon  the  statute  books  amply  justifies  the  use  of 
the  Nevadan's  name  as  the  real  author  of  the  present 
successful  policy.* 

The  Newlands  Bill  proposed  a  continuing  appropria- 
tion to  be  derived  from  the  sale  of  public  lands,  and  put 
this  appropriation  at  the  disposal  of  the  Secretary  of  the 
Interior  for  use  not  only  in  making  investigations,  but 
for  actual  construction  of  reservoirs  and  canals.     Thia 

*  The  original  **  Newlands  bill"  of  January  26,  1901,  together 
with  the  full  text  of  the  famous  Act  of  June  17,  1902,  are 
published  in  the  Appendix  of  this  volume,  for  the  benefit  of 
those  who  desire  to  put  this  statement  to  the  test  of  critical 
analysis. 

276 


FRANCIS  G.  NEWLAXDS. — Whose  famous  irrigation  bill  became  the 
foundation  of  a  New  National  Policy. 


ON  THE   ANVIL  OF   CONGRESS 

was  the  foundation  principle  of  the  law  enacted  on  June 
17,  1902. 

None  save  those  quite  familiar  with  the  difficulties 
which  must  be  surmounted  in  order  to  obtain  the  neces- 
sary support  to  pass  any  irrigation  law,  and  then  to  have 
it  workable  in  the  highest  degree  without  constant  atten- 
tion from  Congress  in  the  future,  can  possibly  appreciate 
how  remarkably  this  measure  was  adapted  to  the  situa- 
tion. It  solved  at  a  single  stroke  questions  which  could 
not  have  been  solved  in  any  other  way  except  by  years  of 
effort  and,  probably,  a  considerable  body  of  legislation. 

First  of  all,  the  plan  disposed  of  the  Eastern  objection 
to  direct  appropriations  from  the  treasury.  Money  re- 
ceived from  the  sale  of  public  lands  came  exclusively 
from  the  West  and  the  major  portion  of  it  from  the 
arid  region.  It  was  money  paid  by  homeseekers.  Why 
should  it  not  be  expended  in  the  West  and  for  the  purpose 
of  making  homes?  Certainly,  it  did  not  represent  taxes 
paid  by  Eastern  people.  The  argument  against  creating 
new  competition  for  Eastern  farmers  could  not  stand 
alone.  It  must  be  supported  by  the  further  argument 
that  it  was  unfair  to  tax  the  East  for  the  specific  purpose 
of  creating  such  competition.  No  one  was  radical 
enough  to  say  that  there  should  be  no  new  homes  or  farms 
in  the  United  States  and  that  the  historic  homestead 
policy  must  be  utterly  abandoned.  This  being  so,  the 
fiscal  feature  of  the  Newlands  plan  could  not  be  success- 
fully attacked  on  either  logical  or  patriotic  grounds.  In 
a  word,  it  supplied  the  unanswerable  solution  of  the  most 
troublesome  feature  of  the  problem. 

Few  realized  at  the  time  how  completely  the  continuing 
277 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  AEID  AMERICA 

appropriation,  derived  from  the  receipts  for  land  sales, 
removed  the  question  from  the  sphere  of  congressional 
action.  It  put  at  the  disposal  of  the  Secretary  of  the 
Interior  a  large  and  growing  fund,  to  be  expended  and 
collected  and  used  over  and  over,  for  an  indefinite  period 
in  the  future.  It  was  no  longer  necessary  to  go  to 
Congress  and  ask  for  the  approval  of  a  specific  project, 
and  for  the  money  to  build  it.  The  money  was  provided 
in  advance,  while  the  Secretary  had  full  power  to  make 
the  investigations,  approve  a  project,  set  apart  the  neces- 
sary funds,  and  proceed  with  its  construction.  So  far 
as  Congress  was  concerned,  the  measure  was  the  most 
remarkable  piece  of  automatic  legislation  ever  devised. 
In  subsequent  pages  we  shall  see  how  well  it  has  worked 
in  practical  operation  and  what  weary  years  have  been 
saved  by  the  concentration  of  such  authority  in  the  hands 
of  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior. 

The  plan  also  supplied  the  only  satisfactory  solution 
of  the  questions  arising  from  local  jealousies  in  the 
West.  Th«  money  was  available  for  irrigation  in  sixteen 
States  and  Territories.  Investigations  were  to  be  made  in 
all  of  them  and  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  was  em- 
powered to  determine  where  it  was  desirable  to  make 
improvements  first.  It  was  assumed  that  he  would  con- 
sider the  claims  of  all  localities  and  arrive  at  his  con- 
clusions from  the  broad  national  standpoint.  This  ex- 
pectation has  been  fully  met  by  the  manner  in  which 
Secretary  Hitchcock  has  administered  the  law.  It  is 
hardly  to  be  believed  that  equally  good  results  would 
have  emerged  from  the  hurly-burly  of  Congress  if  the 
matter  had  been  handled  after  the  manner  of  a  river  and 
harbor  biU. 

278 


ON  THE   ANVIL  OF   CONGRESS 

Other  important  features  of  the  measure  which  were 
later  embodied  in  actual  legislation,  were  these :  provision 
for  the  withdrawal  from  entry,  in  the  discretion  of  the 
Secretary  of  the  Interior,  of  all  public  lands  required  for 
reservoirs  or  canals,  or  susceptible  of  irrigation  from 
proposed  works;  pro-rating  the  cost  among  lands  irri- 
gated and  providing  for  the  repayment  of  the  amount  to 
the  reclamation  fund  in  ten  annual  instalments ;  making 
the  water  right  perpetually  appurtenant  to  the  land,  with 
beneficial  use  the  basis,  the  measure,  and  the  limit  of  the 
right;  providing  that  land  could  be  taken  only  under 
the  homestead  law,  with  its  requirement  for  actual  settle- 
ment ;  and  permitting  the  sale  of  water  rights  to  land  in 
private  ownership,  but  only  in  small  tracts. 

The  virtues  of  the  bill  were  promptly  recognized  by 
those  most  familiar  with  the  needs  of  the  West.  Mr. 
Frederick  H.  Newell,  then  Chief  Hydrographer  of  the 
Geological  Survey  and  now  Chief  Engineer  of  the  Recla- 
mation Service,  testified  before  a  Committee  of  Congress: 
"  Mr.  Newlands's  general  bill  has  been  so  worded  as  to 
avoid  striking  on  all  the  snags  which  are  impeding  the 
progress  of  the  development  and  reclamation  of  the  arid 
lands."  Mr.  Greorge  H.  Maxwell,  Executive  Chairman 
of  the  National  Irrigation  Association,  testified : 

"  I  wish  to  speak  of  the  Newlands  Bill,  No.  14,088.  IthirV  a 
good  name  for  it  would  be  '  the  omnibus  bill.'  It  is  undoubtedly 
true  that  after  fifteen  or  twenty  years  of  Government  investi- 
gation we  are  no  further  than  we  were  at  the  beginning,  so  far 
as  the  actual  reclamation  of  the  land  is  concerned.  Under  this 
bill  the  Government  can  begin  construction  immediately  and  I 
believe  along  lines  which  remove  every  reasonable  objection  to 
the  Government  undertaking  the  great  work  of  bringing  about 

279 


THE   CONQUEST   OF   ARID  AMERICA 

the  reclamation  of  the  arid  lands.  The  first  point  which  it 
seems  to  me  is  important  in  favor  of  the  Newlands  Bill  is  that 
imder  it  everything  can  be  done  which  is  suggested  to  be  done 
by  each  of  the  other  bills  now  before  this  Committee."  \ 

Mr.  Newlands  called  a  conference  at  his  home  in 
Washington  of  seventeen  Senators  and  Representatives 
from  the  Arid  States,  without  regard  to  their  party  affili- 
ations. This  conference  approved  the  measure  and  it 
was  introduced  in  the  Senate  by  Senator  Hansbrough,  of 
North  Dakota,  January  30,  1901,  and  reported  favorably 
by  the  Senate  Committee  on  Public  Lands  five  days  later. 
About  the  same  time,  it  was  also  approved  by  the  House 
Committee  on  Irrigation.  The  measure  provoked  an 
animated  debate  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  but  did 
not  reach  the  voting  stage,  as  the  short  session  expired 
by  limitation  on  the  fourth  of  March. 

The  results  attained  in  Congress  in  the  brief  session 
of  three  months,  were  very  remarkable.  A  measure  had 
been  framed  which  effectually  disposed  of  the  most  seri- 
ous objections  to  a  national  irrigation  policy  entertained 
in  the  East,  and  this  same  measure  completely  overcame 
the  rivalries  of  Western  communities,  each  of  which 
sincerely  believed  it  presented  the  best  opportunity  for 
the  initial  national  enterprise.  The  plan  won  the  ap- 
proval of  the  organized  irrigation  movement  and  the  ap- 
proval of  the  country.  Victory  seemed  almost  in  sight 
when  the  Fifty-sixth  Congress  adjourned,  at  the  close  of 
William  McKinley's  first  administration. 


CHAPTER  III 

IRRIGATION  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

Theodore  Roosevelt  succeeded  to  the  Presidency  on 
September  15th,  1901.  He  was  the  first  occupant  of  the 
White  House  who  had  seen  enough  of  the  Far  West  to 
comprehend  its  unique  economic  possibilities  and  to  un- 
derstand its  claims  upon  the  attention  of  the  Nation. 

The  national  irrigation  movement  was  bom  under  the 
administration  of  Benjamin  Harrison.  The  Indiana 
President  had,  indeed,  made  an  extended  tour  of  the  arid 
region  during  the  year  that  the  first  Irrigation  Congress 
was  held  at  Salt  Lake.  In  the  course  of  his  remarkable 
speeches  he  paid  frequent  tribute  to  the  hardihood  and 
enterprise  of  the  pioneers  who  turned  the  streams  from 
their  channels  and  so  made  oases  in  the  desert.  But  it 
was  not  given  to  him  to  behold  the  true  significance  of 
irrigation.  And  it  was  with  genuine  relief  that,  on  his 
return  to  the  humid  region,  he  looked  out  on  green  fields 
and  remarked  to  an  early  morning  audience,  "  It  is  good 
to  be  back  where  God  furnishes  the  rain." 

Ten  years  elapsed  before  another  President  beheld  the 
same  scenes  in  his  progress  to  the  Pacific.  During  the 
interval,  the  cause  of  reclamation  had  made  a  wonderful 
advance  in  popular  estimation,  yet  William  McKinley, 

281 


THE   CONQUEST   OF   ARID  AMERICA 

who  was  singularly  gifted  with  the  power  to  discern  what 
the  people  were  thinking  about,  did  not  realize  that  he 
was  in  the  presence  of  one  of  the  great  issues  of  the 
imminent  future.  To  an  intimate  friend  he  remarked: 
"I  can  see  that  sometime  there  will  be  a  vast  problem 
here  for  the  people  to  solve,  but  it  will  come  long  after 
I  have  passed  from  the  stage  of  events."  Within  six 
months  of  that  time  a  presidential  message  gave  large 
attention  to  the  subject  and  urged  immediate  action — 
but  it  was  written  by  another  hand.  And  within  less 
than  one  year  a  national  irrigation  law  had  been  enacted 
— but  William  McKinley  was  in  his  honored  grave. 

When  a  young  man,  in  somewhat  delicate  health,  Mr. 
Roosevelt  came  out  from  the  East  to  seek  the  strength  of 
the  mountains  and  the  benediction  of  the  unclouded  sun. 
He  made  a  ranch  on  the  headwaters  of  the  Little  Mis- 
souri, herded  cattle,  mingled  with  cowboys,  hunted  the 
big  game  of  the  plains.  There  he  learned  the  marvel  of 
the  arid  soil  when  joined  to  the  waters  of  the  mountain 
stream.  And  there  he  became  essentially  a  Western  man 
in  spirit  and  in  temperament.  It  would  have  been 
strange  if,  in  his  long  exile  in  the  unpeopled  wilderness, 
he  had  not  pondered  upon  the  ultimate  future  of  the 
region.  It  was  thus  natural  enough  that  he  should  take 
kindly  to  the  idea  of  national  irrigation  when  it  had  been 
brought  prominently  to  the  attention  of  the  country  by 
its  aggressive  champions;  and  his  warm  letter  of  com- 
mendation addressed  to  the  National  Irrigation  Congress 
at  Chicago  in  1900,  when  he  was  Governor  of  New  York, 
surprised  no  one  who  knew  his  partiality  for  the  West. 
The  tragic  death  of  President  McKinley  brought  to  power 

283 


H^^^^^i.'\     ^^^^^H 

1^  ---^ja™ 

'^3 

t^-^^^  "4ii^K  "^^B*"  ■    *  v^^^B 

&fl^ 

E^^H^^^H^  '^fv^l^^^l 

From  stereograph.    Copyright,  I'JOo,  by  Underwood  &  Underwood,  New  York. 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT,  THE   IRRIGATION    PRESIDENT. 


I 


IRRIGATION  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

the  one  American  citizen  then  regarded  as  a  Presidential 
possibility  who  was  thoroughly  committed  to  the  national 
irrigation  plan.  Upon  entering  the  White  House,  he  at 
once  declared  his  intention  to  press  the  new  policy,  and 
proceeded  to  use  all  the  influence  of  his  great  office  in 
urging  it  upon  the  attention  of  Congress  and  the  country. 
President  Roosevelt's  first  message,  delivered  December 
3d,  1901,  outHned  a  much  broader  basis  for  national 
irrigation  than  most  of  its  advocates  had  considered 
practicable  up  to  that  time.  It  went  the  full  length  of 
the  Chittenden  recommendations  and  was  easily  suscep- 
tible of  a  construction  which  carried  it  even  farther.  To 
illustrate,  its  opening  paragraphs  did  not  deal  with  the 
question  of  the  public  domain,  primarily,  but  with  the 
wider  and  deeper  question  of  laying  a  foundation  for 
the  economic  life  of  the  West.  This,  of  course,  compre- 
hends the  whole  physical  basis  of  the  region,  including 
property  now  in  private  as  well  as  public  ownership. 
The  President  saw  no  reason  why  a  scheme  of  internal 
improvements  in  the  arid  region  should  be  discussed  in 
its  relation  to  individual  and  local  benefits,  as  distin- 
guished from  the  benefits  to  be  conferred  upon  the  Nation 
as  a  whole,  any  more  than  individual  and  local  benefits 
are  discussed  in  relation  to  improvements  in  the  Missis- 
sippi Valley  or  on  the  Atlantic  Coast.  He  put  the  new 
policy  on  precisely  the  same  basis  as  the  old.  To  his 
mind,  both  represented  an  exercise  of  national  power  for 
the  protection  and  development  of  national  resources. 
And  one  was  as  necessary  and  legitimate  as  the  other. 
Here  are  the  words  of  his  epoch-making  recommenda- 
tions: 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  ARID  AMERICA 

**  The  forests  alone  cannot,  however,  fully  regulate  and  con- 
serve the  waters  of  the  arid  region.  Great  storage  works  are 
necessary  to  equalize  the  flow  of  streams  and  to  save  the  flood 
waters.  Tlieir  construction  has  been  conclusively  sliown  to  be 
an  undertaking  too  vast  for  private  effort.  Nor  can  it  be  best 
accomplished  by  the  individual  States  acting  alone.  Far- 
reaching  interstate  problems  are  involved  ;  and  tlie  resources 
of  single  States  would  often  be  inadequate. 

"  It  is  properly  a  national  function,  at  least  in  some  of  its 
features.  It  is  as  right  for  the  National  Government  to  make 
the  streams  and  rivers  of  the  arid  region  useful  by  engineering 
works  for  water  storage  as  to  make  useful  the  rivers  and  har- 
bors of  the  humid  region  by  engineering  works  of  another  kind. 
The  storing  of  the  floods  in  reservoirs  at  the  headwaters  of  our 
rivers  is  but  an  enlargement  of  our  present  policy  of  river  con- 
trol, under  which  levees  are  built  on  the  lower  reaches  of  the 
same  streams. 

"  The  Government  should  construct  and  maintain  these 
reservoirs  as  it  does  other  public  works.  Where  their  purpose 
is  to  regulate  the  flow  of  streams,  the  water  should  be  turned 
freely  into  the  channels  in  the  dry  season  to  take  the  same 
course  under  the  same  laws  as  the  natural  flow." 

It  was  thus  that  the  President  invited  the  Nation  to 
enter  upon  a  new  and  magnificent  enterprise.  And  it 
was  only  when  he  had  done  so  that  the  friends  of  the 
policy  realized  how  well  they  had  done  their  work  of  popu- 
lar education.  The  idea  of  conquering  half  a  continent 
for  civilization  flattered  the  national  pride  and  appealed 
irresistibly  to  the  national  imagination.  Not  only  was 
this  true  of  the  West,  where  the  Presidential  message  fell 
like  the  stroke  of  high  noon  on  the  clock  of  destiny,  but 
of  the  Middle  States,  the  South,  and  the  North  Atlantic. 

That  portion  of  the  message  dealing  with  the  reclama- 
tion of  the  public  domain  was  only  second  in  importance 

284 


IRRIGATION  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

to  what  the  President  had  said  of  the  larger  aspects  of 
the  question.    It  was  as  follows: 

"  The  reclamation  of  the  unsettled  arid  public  lands  presents 
a  different  problem.  Here  it  is  not  enough  to  regulate  the 
flow  of  streams.  The  object  of  the  Government  is  to  dispose  of 
the  land  to  settlers  who  will  build  homes  upon  it.  To  accom- 
plish this  object  water  must  be  brought  within  their  reach. 

"  The  pioneer  settlers  on  the  arid  public  domain  chase  their 
homes  along  streams  from  which  they  could  themselves  divert 
the  water  to  reclaim  their  holdings.  Such  opportunities  are 
practically  gone.  There  remain,  however,  vast  areas  of  public 
land  which  can  be  made  available  for  homestead  settlement, 
but  only  by  reservoirs  and  main-line  canals  impracticable  for 
private  enterprise.  These  irrigation  works  should  be  built  by 
the  National  Government.  The  lands  reclaimed  by  them 
should  be  reserved  by  the  Government  for  actual  settlers,  and 
the  cost  of  construction  should,  so  far  as  possible,  be  repaid  by 
the  land  reclaimed.  The  distribution  of  the  water,  the  division 
of  the  streams  among  irrigators,  should  be  left  to  the  settlers 
themselves,  in  conformity  with  State  laws  and  without  inter- 
ference with  those  laws  or  with  vested  rights." 

The  irrigation  measure  on  which  the  West  had  prac- 
tically agreed  was  again  introduced  on  the  day  the  Fifty- 
seventh  Congress  assembled  for  its  first  session, — Dec- 
ember 2,  1901, — by  Representative  Newlands,  and  two 
days  later  by  Senator  Hansbrough.  Then  came  the 
President's  message  with  its  inspiring  assurance  of  un- 
stinted executive  support  for  the  movement.  The  West- 
ern Senators  and  Representatives  were  again  summoned 
into  conference  to  prepare  for  the  final  fight  in  Congress. 
Attempts  were  made  to  alter  the  character  of  the  measure 
materially,  but  they  were  unsuccessful  with  a  single  ex- 

285 


THE   CONQUEST   OF   AEID  AMERICA 

ception.  The  feature  of  the  "original  Newlands  bill'' 
providing  for  the  withdrawal  of  lands  from  entry  under 
all  laws  except  the  homestead,  without  the  benefit  of  the 
commutation  clause,  until  the  works  should  be  finished 
and  the  water  actually  ready  for  delivery,  was  stricken 
out  by  the  Committee. 

This  action  was  intensely  disappointing  to  the  organ- 
ized irrigation  movement,  who  believed  it  was  done  solely 
in  the  interest  of  land-grabbers  who  desired  to  get  pos- 
session of  the  choicest  morsels  of  the  public  domain  in 
advance  of  homeseekers.  George  H.  Maxwell  declared 
that  it  amounted  to  a  betrayal  of  the  most  sacred  objects 
of  the  movement  and  said  it  was  infinitely  preferable  that 
the  entire  measure  should  be  lost  at  that  time  rather  than 
that  a  condition  should  be  created  under  which  it  would 
be  not  only  possible,  but  probable,  that  the  lands  would 
be  stolen  before  the  genuine  homemaker  could  get  an 
opportunity  to  file  upon  them.  His  aggressive  stand 
aroused  a  storm  of  opposition  to  the  amendment.  It  re- 
sulted in  an  animated  conference  at  the  White  House,  at 
which  the  President  announced  that  he  would  not  sign 
the  bill  in  that  shape.  The  original  provision  was  then 
restored  so  that  it  was  made  impossible  for  any  one  to 
obtain  title  to  public  lands  irrigated  by  the  Government, 
without  five  years'  residence  and  actual  cultivation. 

The  Newlands'  bill,  which  had  previously  passed  the 
Senate,  went  through  the  House  on  June  13,  1902,  by  a 
vote  of  146  to  55.  It  was  signed  by  the  President  on 
June  17,  the  127th  anniversary  of  the  battle  of  Bunker 
Hill. 

The  National  Irrigation  Law  had  a  singular  experi- 
286 


IKRIGATION  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

ence  in  the  presidential  campaign  of  1904.  It  is  perhaps 
the  only  measure  in  the  history  of  American  legislation 
enjoying  a  popularity  so  absolute  and  unquestionable  that 
the  only  possible  controversy  between  the  two  parties 
was  as  to  which  was  entitled  to  the  greater  credit  for 
bringing  it  to  pass.  The  controversy  on  this  point  raged 
fiercely  throughout  the  arid  region  and  was  sharply 
accentuated  by  the  Democratic  demand  for  a  policy  of 
domestic  development  as  opposed  to  foreign  expansion. 

The  Eepublicans  asserted  that  the  President  was 
chiefly  entitled  to  the  credit  for  the  passage  of  the  law, 
and  claimed  that  the  seventeen  Senators  and  Representa- 
tives from  the  Arid  States  who  united  in  recommending 
the  measure  were  the  real  authors  of  the  bill.  The  Dem- 
ocrats replied  that  the  measure  was  framed  and  intro- 
duced by  a  statesman  of  their  own  faith,  that  it  was 
passed  in  the  Senate  by  a  non-partisan  vote,  and  passed  in 
the  House  (where  the  real  battle  was  fought)  by  a^vote 
the  majority  of  which  was  Democratic,  over  the  opposi- 
tion of  the  strongest  Republican  leaders  in  that  body. 

The  controversy  was  one  of  more  than  passing  interest 
because  it  involved  the  attitude  of  individuals  and  of 
parties  in  connection  with  principles  which  are  certain 
to  be  much  debated  in  the  future  and  to  exert  a  far- 
reaching  influence  on  the  course  of  events.  It  was  hope- 
less to  expect  a  judicial  consideration  of  the  matter  in 
the  height  of  a  presidential  campaign.  Since  then,  how- 
ever, it  has  been  discussed  in  a  spirit  which  seems  entirely 
worthy  of  permanent  record.  At  Sheridan,  Wyoming, 
in  July,  1905,  in  the  presence  of  several  of  his  colleagues 
on  the  Committee  of  Seventeen  who  urged  the  measure 

287 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  ARID  AMERICA 

upon  Congress,  Senator  Newlands  reviewed  the  contro- 
versy with  the  utmost  frankness.  His  presentation  was 
received  with  a  degree  of  enthusiasm  and  apparent  una- 
nimity which  warrants  the  hope  that  the  contention  is 
now  ended.  The  occasion  was  furnished  by  a  banquet 
tendered  to  the  members  of  the  Congressional  Committees 
on  Irrigation,  near  the  end  of  their  long  tour  of  the  arid 
region.     Senator  Newlands  said: 

"  I  have  listened  through  our  journey  to  the  praise  bestowed 
upon  President  Roosevelt  in  connection  with  the  irrigation 
movement,  and  I  would  not  detract  at  all  from  the  deserved 
reputation  which  he  enjoys  by  his  prominence  in  it.  But  I 
wish  to  call  your  attention  to  the  fact  that  it  was  a  union  of 
Democrats  with  Mr.  Roosevelt  and  Mr.  Mondell  and  Mr.  Jones 
of  Washington  and  Mr.  Reeder  of  Kansas  and  other  Republi- 
cans like  them,  that  accomplished  this  act  of  legislation." 

Mr.  Mondell :  *'  You  are  right." 

Mr.  Newlands  :  "  The  fact  is  that  we  Democrats  have  adopted 
Mr.  Roosevelt.  And  there  are  now  two  wings  to  the  Democra- 
tic party,  the  Republican  wing  and  the  old  Democratic  wing. 
We  are  for  Mr.  Roosevelt's  Democratic  policy  of  reform,  and 
we  are  going  to  see  that  that  policy  is  enacted  into  law  within 
the  next  three  years,  for  Providence  has  assigned  to  him  the 
opportunity  of  achievement." 

Mr.  Newlands  then  referred  to  the  fact  that  through- 
out their  pilgrimage  in  the  Southwest  and  West,  Mr. 
Mondell  had  referred  to  the  famous  Committee  of 
Seventeen — a  voluntary  committee,  selected,  after  Mr. 
Roosevelt  became  President,  by  the  Senators  and  Repre- 
sentatives from  the  Western  States,  to  adjust  the  differ- 
ences of  the  West  regarding  irrigation,  as  the  source  and 
origin  of  the  Reclamation  Act. 


IRRIGATION  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

"  This,"  he  said,  •*  was  a  mistake.  The  Reclamation  Act,  in 
all  its  essential  features,  had  been  framed  and  presented  by  a 
Democrat  at  the  preceding  session  of  Congress,  immediately 
following  the  election  of  1900  and  whilst  Mr.  McKinley  was 
living." 

Referring  to  its  history,  Mr.  Newlands  stated  that  in 
1900,  after  many  years  of  agitation,  the  Western  men 
had  secured  from  both  the  Democratic  and  Republican 
parties  a  declaration  in  their  platform  favoring  national 
irrigation,  and  at  the  session  of  Congress  next  ensuing 
(the  session  constituting  the  last  of  McKinley's  first 
term),  it  was  determined  to  press  the  matter.  At  that 
time,  said  Mr.  Newlands,  there  were  but  three  bills 
pending  in  Congress  providing  for  immediate  construc- 
tion, which  had  been  presented  by  Shafroth,  Bell,  and 
himself. 

*•  As  the  Committee  hearing  progressed,"  said  Mr.  Newlands, 
**  it  soon  developed  that  members  differed  greatly,  and  I  came 
to  the  conclusion  that  we  could  not  hope  to  persuade  the  East 
until  the  men  of  the  West  were  united.  And  so,  with  a  view 
to  shaping  a  broad  and  comprehensive  national  measure  that 
would  receive  the  support  of  and  include  the  entire  arid  region, 
I  made  a  careful  study  of  all  previous  bills,  including  those  of 
Mr.  Shafroth  and  Mr.  Bell,  from  which  most  valuable  sugges- 
tions were  received.  I  also  consulted  Mr.  Newell  of  the  Rec- 
lamation Service,  Mr.  Maxwell  of  the  Irrigation  Association, 
Mr.  Elvvood  Mead,  and  other  irrigation  experts,  who  differed 
widely  as  to  the  form  of  legislation  ;  and  finally,  on  the  26th 
day  of  January,  1901,  I  introduced  in  the  House  a  bill  which 
contained  every  essential  feature  of  the  Reclamation  Act  that 
is  now  upon  the  statute  book. 

**  This  bill  provided  for  a  revolving  reclamation  fund  derived 
from  the  sales  of  public  lands ;  it  authorized  the  withdrawal 
U  289 


THE   CONQUEST  OF  ARID  AMERICA 

from  entry  of  lands  necessary  for  irrigation  projects,  and  pro- 
vided for  the  immediate  construction  of  irrigation  works  wher- 
ever deemed  feasible  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  upon 
whom  the  only  restraint  imposed  was  that  no  contract  should 
be  let  unless  the  money  for  its  payment  was  in  the  fund.  It  dis- 
couraged land  monopoly  by  dividing  the  lands  to  be  irrigated  into 
small  holdings  for  actual  settlers,  and  sought  to  destroy  exist- 
ing land  monopoly  by  providing  that  no  private  owner  of  land 
could  secure  a  water  right  for  more  than  eighty  acres,  thus 
compelling  the  division  of  large  holdings  into  small  farms.  It 
provided  for  the  payment  of  the  cost  of  each  project  by  the 
settlers,  without  interest,  in  ten  annual  instalments,  the  fund 
being  thus  retained  as  a  revolving  fund  for  future  opera- 
tions. 

'*  This  bill  was  considered  at  a  meeting  of  Western  Senators 
and  Representatives  at  my  house,  and,  upon  motion  of  Senator 
Pettigrew,  the  bill  was  approved  and  Senator  Hansbrough,  a 
most  strenuous  advocate  of  national  irrigation,  was  requested 
to  introduce  it  in  the  Senate,  which  was  done  the  next  day. 
This  bill  was  immediately  accepted  by  the  Western  news- 
papers and  Western  sentiment  as  a  satisfactory  solution  of  the 
question,  and  within  six  weeks  and  before  the  close  of  the  ses- 
sion and  of  McKinley's  first  adminstration,  the  movement  for 
its  passage  had  made  such  headway  that  it  received  the  sanc- 
tion of  the  Senate  Committee  on  Public  Lands  of  the  Senate, 
and  its  leading  provisions  had  received  the  approval  of  the 
House  Committee  on  Irrigation. 

"All  this  was  accomplished  before  Mr.  Roosevelt  became 
President.  The  Western  press  announced  that  the  bill  would 
be  pressed  by  the  West  at  the  following  session.  Meanwhile, 
however,  a  movement  was  organized  in  Wyoming  to  defeat  this 
bill  and  to  substitute  for  it  a  measure  more  in  harmony  with 
the  Wyoming  view,  which  sought  to  retain  State  control  over 
the  construction  and  administration  of  irrigation  projects. 
And  so  a  convention  was  called  at  Cheyenne  of  Representatives 
from  North  and  South  Dakota,  Nebraska,  Kansas,  Colorado, 
Wyoming,  Montana,  and  Idaho,  most  of  which  States  had 
irrigation  departments  organized  under  State  Engineers  in 

290 


lERIGATION  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

flympathy  with  the  views  of  Wyoming.  At  this  convention,  of 
which  Mr.  Mondell,  Senator  Warren,  and  others  were  con- 
spicuous members,  the  so-called  *  State  Engineers'  Bill '  was 
approved,  a  bill  which  accepted  the  provision  of  the  general 
bill  introduced  at  the  preceding  session  of  Congress  by  myself 
as  to  the  creation  of  a  reclamation  fund,  but  provided  for  the 
construction  and  control  of  irrigation  projects  by  the  State 
Engineers  of  the  respective  States. 

"  Later  on,  when  we  met  at  Washington  for  the  first  session 
under  Roosevelt's  administration,  a  call  was  issued  to  the 
Senators  and  Representatives  to  meet  at  Senator  Warren's  com- 
mittee room,  and  there  Senator  Warren  presented  the  State 
Engineers'  bill  for  our  consideration.  We  who  believed  in 
thoroughly  nationalizing  irrigation,  who  believed  that  every 
river  and  its  tributaries,  regardless  of  State  lines,  should  be 
made  the  subject  of  comprehensive  study  by  the  National 
Government  with  a  view  to  the  construction  of  works  that 
would  secure  the  largest  development  of  the  entire  drainage 
area,  vigorously  fouglit  this  bill,  and  it  was  rejected. 

*'  Then  it  was  that  the  Committee  of  Seventeen,  composed  of 
one  Senator  or  Representative  from  each  State  or  Territory  af- 
fected, was  selected  to  harmonize  the  differences  of  the  West. 
For  thirty  days  this  committee  sat  in  session,  their  contention 
being  mainly  between  those  of  us  who  wished  thoroughly 
nationalized  irrigation  and  those  who  wished  to  retain  some 
form  of  State  control ;  and  at  the  end  of  that  period  of  conten- 
tion the  Reclamation  Act  was  reported  containing  every 
essential  provision  of  the  bill  to  which  I  have  referred,  which 
was  introduced  by  me  in  the  preceding  Congress,  and  Mr. 
Hansbrough  was  instructed  to  offer  this  bill  in  the  Senate  and 
I  was  instructed  to  offer  it  in  the  House. 

"The  passage  of  this  bill  in  the  Senate  was  assured  because 
of  the  large  representation  of  the  West  in  that  body.  The  dif- 
ficulty was  in  the  House,  where  the  Western  delegation  was 
proportionately  small  and  in  which  the  Republican  leaders  had 
arrayed  themselves  in  opposition  to  the  bill.  The  bill  had  to  go 
before  the  regular  committees  for  consideration.  It  was  re- 
ported to  the  House  by  Mr.  Mondell,  who  had  accepted  the 

291 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  ARID  AMERICA 

judgment  of  the  West  as  to  the  complete  nationalization  of  ir- 
rigation, in  a  very  comprehensive  report.  It  was  at  this  time 
that  President  Roosevelt,  whose  message  had  drawn  the  atten- 
tion of  the  entire  country  to  the  importance  of  irrigation,  in- 
tervened as  the  friend  of  the  West  and  gave  his  powerful 
influence  to  breaking  down  the  opposition  of  Republican 
leaders.  It  was  largely  due  to  him  that  consideration  of  the 
bill  was  conceded  by  the  House  leaders  who,  although  they 
voted  against  the  bill,  relaxed  their  opposition  to  its  considera- 
tion." 

Supplementing  an  account  given  by  Mr.  Mondell  of 
an  interview  with  Mr.  Roosevelt,  in  which  Mr.  Roosevelt 
gave  him  a  letter  addressed  to  Mr.  Cannon  urging  the 
immediate  consideration  and  passage  of  the  bill,  Mr. 
Newlands  referred  to  an  interview  of  his  own  with  the 
President  in  which  the  latter  expressed  the  greatest 
interest  in  the  subject,  but  suggested  that  it  might  be 
better  to  substitute  for  the  pending  comprehensive  bill 
a  bill  for  a  small  project  involving  the  expenditure  of 
$250,000  or  $500,000,  as  an  entering  wedge  for  future 
legislation,  Mr.  Newlands  continued: 

"  My  reply  was :  *  Mr.  President,  we  can  pass  a  big  bill  as 
easily  as  we  can  pass  a  little  bill.  If  we  pass  a  little  bill  for 
one  project,  it  will  take  five  years  for  its  completion,  and  Con- 
gress will  then  take  five  years  longer  in  determining  whether  it 
is  a  success  or  not ;  besides,  we  cannot  stake  the  cause  of  na- 
tional irrigation  on  the  success  of  one  project,  which  might  be 
a  failure.  We  can  pass  this  general  bill  if  you  can  moderate 
the  opposition  of  the  leading  members  of  your  own  party,  for 
the  Democratic  party  stands  ready  to  support  this  bill.'  It  was 
not  necessary  to  urge  this  upon  President  Roosevelt,  who  was 
heart  and  soul  in  the  movement,  and  who  threw  himself  into 
the  advocacy  of  the  movement  with  a  zeal  all  his  own.  The 
result  was  that  while  the  leaders  to  whom  I  have  referred  voted 
against  the  bill,  they  graciously  allowed  it  to  be  considered  in 

292 


IRRIGATION  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

the  House,  and  after  a  spirited  debate,  in  which  Mr.  Shafrotli 
took  so  conspicuous  a  part,  the  bill  was  passed. 

*'  Let  me  say  that  though  the  House  was  Republican,  the 
majority  of  the  votes  which  passed  the  bill  was  Democratic  ; 
and  of  the  votes  against  the  bill,  three-fourths  were  Republican 
and  one-fourth  Democratic.  And  so  I  say  that  whilst  we  rec- 
ognize the  splendid  advocacy  of  Roosevelt  and  the  energetic  ef- 
forts of  other  Republicans  like  him,  I  insist  upon  it  that  history 
records  that  the  bill  in  all  its  essential  features  was  framed  by 
a  Democrat  and  passed  in  the  House  of  Representatives  by  a 
vote  the  majority  of  which  was  Democratic  ;  and  that  the  bill 
stands  upon  the  statute  book  to-day  as  the  result  of  a  union  of 
Democracy  with  President  Roosevelt  and  his  Republican 
friends  of  like  faith." 

Mr.  Newlands  then  went  on  to  declare  that  the  Demo- 
crats would  stand  with  the  President  in  the  reform  of  the 
land  laws  and  other  measures.  He  commented  at  length 
upon  the  necessity  of  reforming  the  land  laws,  insist- 
ing that  through  their  operation  the  natural  wealth  of 
the  country,  the  wealth  of  timber,  of  coal,  of  iron,  and 
of  oil  in  the  public  domain  belonging  to  the  entire 
people,  was  drifting  into  the  hands  of  syndicates  and 
monopolies,  to  be  used  for  their  oppression. 

"I  insist,"  said  Mr.  Newlands,  **  that  these  questions  are  too 
serious  for  mere  partisan  consideration.  The  democracy  of 
both  parties  should  be  aroused  to  the  necessity  of  upholding 
President  Roosevelt  in  his  domestic  policies.  No  desire  to  em- 
broil the  President  with  his  own  party  should  control  the  senti- 
ment of  Democrats,  but  rather  the  patriotic  motive  of  aiding 
him  to  place  upon  the  statute  books  tlie  policies  of  which  he  is 
to-day  the  leading  exponent.  A  greater  democracy  should  be 
appealed  to — not  the  mere  democracy  of  a  party,  but  that  larger 
democracy  which  enrolls  as  its  distinguished  leaders  Jefferson 
and  Jackson,  Lincoln  and  Roosevelt." 


203 


CHAPTER  IV 

UNCLE  SAM's  young  MEN  AT  WOKE 

The  main  provisions  of  the  national  irrigation  law 
are  as  follows: 

Beginning  with  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  1901, 
the  entire  receipts  from  the  sale  of  public  lands  in 
Arizona,  California,  Colorado,  Idaho,  Kansas,  Montana, 
Nebraska,  Nevada,  New  Mexico,  North  Dakota,  Okla- 
homa, Oregon,  South  Dakota,  Utah,  Washington,  and 
Wyoming,  are  set  aside  and  appropriated  as  a  special 
fund  in  the  Treasury,  to  be  known  as  the  Reclamation 
Fund,  for  the  examination  and  survey,  and  for  the  con- 
struction and  maintenance,  of  irrigation  works  for  the 
storage,  diversion,  and  development  of  waters  for  the 
reclamation  of  arid  and  semi-arid  lands  in  those  States 
and  Territories. 

The  Secretary  of  the  Interior  is  authorized  and  di- 
rected to  make  examinations  and  surveys  for,  and  to 
locate  and  construct,  irrigation  works  for  the  storage, 
diversion,  and  development  of  waters,  including  artesian 
wells,  and  to  report  to  Congress  all  the  details  of  the  work 
accomplished. 

The  Secretary  is  required,  before  giving  the  public 
notice  of  his  plans,  to  withdraw  from  public  entry  both 
the  lands  which  may  be  needed  for  irrigation  works 
and  the  lands  which  are  likely  to  be  reclaimed  by  such 

294 


UNCLE  SAM'S  YOUNG  MEN  AT  WORK 

works,  except  that  agricultural  lands  shall  be  open  to 
entry  under  the  homestead  law,  but  without  the  privi- 
lege of  the  commutation  clause  of  that  law. 

The  Secretary  has  full  authority  to  let  contracts  for 
the  construction  of  such  irrigation  works  as  he  considers 
feasible,  providing  the  necessary  funds  are  available. 
He  is  not  required  to  wait  for  any  special  authorization 
by  Congress. 

The  working  day  for  men  employed  in  construction 
is  fixed  at  eight  hours  and  the  employment  of  Mongolian 
labor  is  prohibited. 

The  Secretary  determines  the  amount  of  land  which 
each  settler  may  file  upon,  but  the  law  fixes  the  minimum 
entry  at  40  acres  and  the  maximum  at  160  acres.  Within 
these  limitations,  discretion  is  left  to  the  Secretary  and 
he  is  expected  to  determine  the  area  "reasonably  re- 
quired for  the  support  of  a  family  upon  the  lands  in 
question." 

The  law  distinctly  contemplates  the  reclamation  of 
lands  in  private  ownership  and  makes  it  the  duty  of  the 
Secretary  to  determine  the  terms  upon  which  water  shall 
be  supplied  to  such  lands,  provided  "  no  right  to  the  use 
of  water  for  land  in  private  ownership  shall  be  sold  for  a 
tract  exceeding  160  acres  to  any  one  landowner,  and  no 
such  sale  shall  be  made  to  any  landowner  unless  he  be  an 
actual  bona  fide  resident  on  such  land,  or  occupant  there- 
of, residing  in  the  neighborhood."  (The  last  clause  was 
added  for  the  accommodation  of  settlers  who,  like  the 
Mormons,  prefer  to  have  their  homes  in  village  centres). 

Settlers  are  required  to  pay  the  usual  Government 
price  of  $1.25  per  acre  for  land,  and,  in  addition,  the  price 

295 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  AEID  AMERICA 

fixed  by  the  Secretary  for  water.  The  latter  is  sufficient 
to  reimburse  the  Government  for  the  cost  of  the  works 
and  to  be  paid  in  ten  annual  instalments,  without  inter- 
est. This  applies  alike  to  private  landowners  and  to 
entrymen  on  public  land. 

When  payment  has  been  made  for  the  major  portion 
of  the  lands  irrigated  by  a  given  system,  the  management 
and  operation  of^the  irrigation  works  passes  to  the  land- 
owners under  such  form  of  organization  and  such  rules 
and  regulations  as  the  Secretary  may  approve. 

But  the  title  to  reservoirs  and  to  the  works  necessary 
for  their  protection  and  operation,  together  with  the 
management  of  same,  rests  with  the  Government  until 
otherwise  provided  by  Congress. 

The  Secretary  is  given  authority  to  acquire  by  purchase 
or  condemnation  any  rights  or  property  which  he  finds 
necessary  in  the  application  of  the  law. 

The  Secretary  is  required  to  expend  the  major  portion 
of  the  funds  arising  from  the  sale  of  public  lands  within 
the  State  or  Territory  whence  the  money  is  derived,  but 
may  temporarily  use  the  fund  wherever  he  may  deem 
advisable.  At  least  once  in  ten  years,  the  expenditures 
for  the  benefit  of  the  various  States  and  Territories  must 
be  equalized,  as  far  as  this  may  be  feasible. 

Nothing  in  the  law  is  intended  to  affect  or  interfere 
with  local  statutes  relating  to  the  control,  appropriation, 
or  distribution  of  water,  or  with  vested  rights.  It  is 
provided,  however,  that  the  right  to  the  use  of  water 
from  the  national  system  shall  always  be  appurtenant 
to  the  land,  and  that  beneficial  use  shall  be  recognized 
as  the  basis,  the  measure,  and  the  limit  of  the  right. 


ETHAN  ALLEX   HITCHCOCK,   SECRETARY    OF  THE    INTERIOR.— Whose 

name  will  live  in  History  as  the  First  Administrator  of  National 
Irrigation  and  Fearless  Prosecutor  of  Land  Frauds. 


UNCLE  SAM'S  YOUNG  MEN  AT  WORK 

Within  twenty-four  hours  after  the  signing  of  the 
measure  by  the  President,  Secretary  Hitchcock  had  set 
the  machinery  of  the  Department  of  the  Interior  in 
motion  to  carry  it  into  effect.  He  assigned  the  details 
of  administration  to  the  Geological  Survey.  Director 
Charles  D.  Walcott  immediately  organized  the  United 
States  Reclamation  Service,  putting  at  the  head  of  it  a 
trained  man  of  great  competence,  Frederick  Haynes 
Newell. 

Educated  at  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Tech- 
nology, Chief  Engineer  Newell  had  already  spent  a  dozen 
busy  years  in  studying  the  hydraulic  problems  of  the  arid 
region.  He  was  one  of  the  young  men  who  had  grown 
up  in  the  inspiring  presence  of  John  Wesley  Powell, 
founder  of  the  Geological  Survey,  and  first  scientific 
explorer  of  the  Far  West.  Major  Powell  had  predicted 
for  him  a  great  career  and  had  done  much  to  fit  him  for 
the  work  upon  which  he  now  entered.  He  came  to  his 
new  task  a  patient,  thorough,  scientific  servaijt  of  the 
Republic,  with  no  dangerous  enthusiasms,  but  with 
deeply-founded  faith  in  the  value  of  the  great  enterprise 
committed  to  his  hands. 

The  work  of  the  Reclamation  Service  is  planned  by  a 
Board  of  Consulting  Engineers,  composed  of  men  who 
represent  the  finest  talent  and  most  valuable  experience 
for  this  particular  service  in  the  United  States.  These 
men  are  Arthur  P.  Davis,  Joseph  Barlow  Lippincott, 
G.  Y.  Wisner,  H.  N.  Savage,  J.  H.  Quinton,  W.  H. 
Sanders,  and  Benjamin  M.  Hall.  They  were  all  care- 
fully trained  for  their  profession,  and  they  have  all  been 
associated  with  the  work  of  designing  and  constructing 

397 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  AEID  AMERICA 

important  public  and  private  hydraulic  systems  in  many 
different  parts  of  the  country.  In  April,  1905,  the 
President  appointed  C.  E.  Grunsky,  of  California,  late 
a  member  of  the  Isthmian  Canal  Commission,  Consult- 
ing Engineer  to  the  Director  of  the  Geological  Survey, 
which  further  strengthened  the  Reclamation  Service,  as 
the  Director  stands  between  Chief  Engineer  Newell  and 
the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  in  the  administration  of  the 
great  enterprise. 

The  first  work  of  the  Reclamation  Service  was  to 
organize  a  corps  of  young  men  to  make  the  necessary 
surveys  and  examinations  over  a  vast  territory.  The 
nucleus  of  the  service  consists  of  men  who  have  been 
engaged  in  measuring  streams  and  studying  the  economic 
possibilities  of  the  West  under  the  Geological  Survey. 
Additional  men  are  obtained  through  competitive  ex- 
amination. These  are  of  two  classes.  The  first  consists 
of  experienced  men  chosen  through  examinations  based 
on  practical  questions  where  the  rating  depends  largely 
on  the  applicant's  record  in  the  construction  of  irrigation 
works.  The  second  is  made  up  of  well-educated  young 
men  of  good  character  who  enter  the  lower  ranks  with  the 
expectation  of  being  advanced  as  opportunity  offers.  The 
young  fellows  fresh  from  college  receive  while  on  pro- 
bation about  $60  per  month;  as  they  show  their  worth, 
they  are  advanced  to  $75  per  month,  then  to  $1000  a 
year.  Up  to  this  stage  they  are  known  as  engineering 
aids.  Later,  they  become  assistant  engineers,  receiving 
$1,200,  $1,400,  or  $1,600  a  year,  until  the  time  when 
they  have  demonstrated  their  ability  to  conduct  inde- 
pendent work  and  to  initiate  plans.     Then  they  become 


^^^^I^Ihv            ^^^^I 

1 

r^  ii»        ' '^ 

I.  CHARLES  D.  vvALCOTT.— Director 
of  the  United  States  Geological 
Survey. 

3.  GIFFORD  PINCHOT.— Forester. 


2.  FREDERICK   H.  NEWELL.— Chief 

Engineer  of  the  United  States 

Reclamation  Service. 
4.  c.  E.  GRUNSKY.— Consulting  En- 
gineer to  Director  of  the  Geolo- 
gical Survey. 


UNCLE  SAM'S  YOUNG  MEN  AT  WORK 

full  engineers,  receiving  from  $1,800  to  $3,600,  according 
to  age  and  experience.  Appointments  and  promotions 
are  made  in  accordance  with  the  best  ideal  of  civil  service 
and  political  influence  is  wholly  ignored. 

There  are  thirteen  States  and  three  Territories  which 
constitute  the  field  of  operations  for  the  Reclamation 
Service.  In  all  of  these,  engineering  parties  were 
promptly  put  at  work.  Some  of  the  parties  were  quite 
large.  For  instance,  over  one  hundred  men  were  engaged 
for  several  months  on  the  lower  reaches  of  the  Colorado 
River  in  Arizona  and  California.  Camps  are  frequently 
located  in  the  wildest  spots  still  remaining  in  the  United 
States. 

The  first  step  everywhere  is  to  measure  streams  and 
learn  the  quantity  of  water  available  for  the  reclamation 
of  new  areas.  The  next  step,  roughly  to  survey  the  lands 
susceptible  of  irrigation  from  the  source  of  supply.  When 
a  project  looks  promising,  the  engineers  proceed  to  ob- 
tain exact  information  concerning  the  cost  and  efficiency 
of  necessary  works,  then  to  study  all  the  factors  entering 
into  the  economic  questions  presented.  The  field  work 
completed,  full  reports  concerning  the  project,  together 
with  maps  and  photographs,  are  forwarded  to  the  Chief 
Engineer  at  Washington.  This  official  gives  the  matter 
careful  consideration  and,  if  the  facts  /  are  apparently 
complete,  submits  them  to  a  consulting  board  of  three 
or  more  engineers  whose  professional  standing  is  such  as 
to  give  confidence  in  their  opinions.  If  the  matter  still 
looks  promising,  the  board  visits  the  locality,  goes  over 
the  items,  verifies  the  conclusions,  and  transmits  its 
findings  to  the  Chief  Engineer.     If  additional  surveys 

299 


THE   CONQUEST  OF  ARID  AMEEICA 

are  needed,  they  are  made;  otherwise,  the  conclusions 
are  sent  forward  with  recommendations,  through  the  Di- 
rector of  the  Geological  Survey,  to  the  Secretary  of  the 
Interior. 

The  plans  are  not  yet  public  property,  and  may  never 
become  such.  All  that  has  been  done  up  to  this  point 
is  for  the  information  of  the  Administration,  which  must 
now  exercise  its  own  judgment  as  to  how,  when,  and 
where  the  reclamation  fund  shall  be  expended.  It  is 
only  when  final  action  has  been  determined  upon  that 
the  public  may  know  what  the  Government  will  do. 

Before  the  National  Irrigation  Law  had  been  on  the 
statute  books  a  year,  examinations  had  been  pushed  into 
nearly  all  States  and  Territories  mentioned  in  the  Act, 
and  five  projects  had  been  officially  approved.  These 
were  located,  repectively,  on  the  Milk  River  in  Montana, 
the  Sweetwater  in  Wyoming,  the  Truckee  in  Nevada,  the 
Gunnison  in  Colorado,  and  the  Salt  River  in  Arizona. 
In  another  six  months  construction  had  actually  begun 
in  Nevada  and  Arizona.  The  amount  in  the  Reclama- 
tion Fund  on  June  30th,  1903,  the  end  of  the  second 
fiscal  year,  was  about  $16,000,000.  At  the  end  of  the 
third  year  it  was  $23,000,000  and  on  June  30th,  1905, 
about  $30,000,000. 

There  is  no  other  instance  in  American  history  where 
the  inauguration  of  a  new  policy  of  internal  development 
was  so  promptly  accomplished.  Not  an  hour  was  wasted 
in  useless  talk,  in  Congress  or  out  of  it.  In  the  fulness 
of  time.  Uncle  Sam  had  laid  his  hand  on  the  door  of 
Arid  America,  and  the  whole  Nation  looked  on  with 
enthusiastic  approval. 

300       ^ 


UNCLE  SAM^S  YOUNG  MEN  AT  WORK 

The  Agricultural  Department  co-operates  with  the  Re- 
clamation Service  in  preparing  the  way  for  the  settler. 
There  is  much  to  be  done  besides  bringing  water  to  the 
desert.  The  soil  must  be  analyzed  and  its  capacity  for 
the  production  of  various  crops  determined  in  advance,  as 
far  as  possible.  Various  social  and  economic  problems 
closely  related  to  irrigation  must  be  subjected  to  careful 
study.  The  duty  of  water — ^that  is  to  say,  the  amount 
required  to  obtain  the  best  results  with  certain  crops 
and  soils — is  a  matter  of  vital  importance  to  the  settler 
and  only  to  be  ascertained  by  scientific  investigation. 

The  division  of  Irrigation  Investigations  and  Drainage 
in  the  Bureau  of  Experiment  Stations  is  one  of  the  most 
important  agencies  now  engaged  in  working  out  the 
problem  of  colonization.  Elwood  Mead,  who  had  done 
one  lifetime's  work  in  framing  and  administering  the 
water  laws  of  Wyoming,  is  now  engaged  in  the  perform- 
ance of  another  as  Chief  of  this  Division.  He  approached 
these  problems  with  a  grasp  and  a  trained  intelligence 
which  no  other  man  could  have  given  them  and,  with  the 
aid  of  his  numerous  staff  of  skilled  and  earnest  assistants, 
he  is  guiding  the  work  of  the  pioneer  settlers  in  a  way 
which  will  enable  them  to  build  on  scientific  foundations. 
While  this  work  is  less  dramatic  than  the  construction  of 
reservoirs  and  canals,  and  far  less  monumental  in  its 
physical  results,  it  is  none  the  less  important  to  the 
people  of  the  country.  It  is,  in  fact,  the  work  which 
will  enable  the  future  millions  to  utilize  the  opportunities 
opened  by  the  Reclamation  Service  and  to  preserve  these 
advantages  to  the  latest  generation. 


301 


CHAPTEE  Y 

PREPARING  HOMES  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

On  July  1st,  1905,  the  reclamation  fund  for  home- 
making  in  Arid  America  amounted  to  about  $30,000,000. 
Plans  had  been  made  for  the  expenditure  of  this  amount 
in  thirteen  States  and  three  Territories.  On  the  17th 
of  June,  the  third  anniversary  of  the  Eeclamation  Act, 
the  formal  opening  of  the  first  government  project  oc- 
curred in  Nevada  in  the  presence  of  a  large  and  distin- 
guished company.  Work  is  being  vigorously  prosecuted 
on  many  other  projects,  and  it  is  expected  that  on  each 
succeeding  anniversary  of  the  Act  at  least  one  system 
will  be  completed  and  a  large  area  of  lands  dedicated  to 
settlement. 

In  preceding  chapters,  the  resources  of  various  States 
and  Territories  have  been  discussed  and  the  story  of  their 
development  brought  down  to  date.  There  the  reader 
will  find  general  descriptions  of  climate,  soil,  geography, 
markets,  and  other  considerations  of  vital  interest  to  the 
intending  settler  in  all  localities  where  works  of  irriga- 
tion are  building  or  to  be  built.  The  object  of  this 
chapter  is  to  supply  concise  and  reliable  information 
concerning  projects  actually  under  way  and  certain  to  be 
opened  to  homeseekers  in  the  early  future. 

Any  unmarried  person  over  twenty-one  years  of  age, 
or  head  of  a  family,  who  is,  or  has  declared  intention  to 


PREPARING  HOMES  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

become,  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  who  has  not  used 
his  or  her  homestead  right,  or  who  is  not  then  owner 
of  more  than  160  acres  of  land  in  any  one  State,  can  file 
on  any  one  of  the  tracts  surveyed  by  the  Government. 
Title  to  lands  cannot  be  acquired  until  all  payments  for 
water  have  been  made,  ten  years  hence.  The  law  re- 
quires a  homesteader  to  see  and  select  his  land  personally. 

There  is  one  warning  which  should  be  sounded  for  the 
benefit  of  a  certain  class  of  settlers.  The  man  who  at- 
tempts to  make  a  home  on  the  primeval  desert,  even  with 
free  land  and  the  best  irrigation  and  drainage  facilities, 
requires  money  to  make  a  successful  start.  There  will 
doubtless  be  exceptions  to  the  rule — men  who  will  get 
work  in  the  locality  from  the  Government  or  private 
parties  and  be  able  to  hold  on  until  their  land  yields 
returns,  when,  by  dint  of  hard  work  and  economical 
living,  they  can  build  their  homes,  improve  their  lands, 
and  make  their  annual  payments  for  water  rights.  But 
the  average  man  will  need  capital  in  order  to  bring  his 
farm  to  a  paying  stage.  This  capital  he  cannot  borrow 
until  he  gets  title  to  his  land,  and  he  cannot  get  title 
until  he  completes  payment  for  his  water  rights,  ten  years 
hence.  There  is  no  way  in  which  these  payments  can  be 
commuted. 

It  is  important  that  the  reader  should  understand  at 
the  outset  that  a  large  part  of  the  land  to  be  reclaimed 
by  the  national  irrigation  system  is  not  public  domain, 
open  to  entry  under  the  land  laws,  but  land  in  private 
ownership  which  the  settler  may  only  obtain  by  purchase 
from  its  present  proprietors.  The  proportion  of  private 
land  varies  widely  with  different  projects.     There  is  no 

303 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  ARID  AMERICA 

locality  which  is  wholly  free  from  it,  and  there  are  some 
localities  where  nearly  all  the  land  is  privately  owned. 
The  law  not  only  favors,  but  compels,  the  subdivision  of 
these  private  estates  into  farms  of  one  hundred  and 
sixty  acres  each.  Water  rights  from  government  canals 
cannot  be  obtained  by  any  one  purchaser  for  a  larger 
area  than  this.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  popular  farm 
unit  will  be  much  less  and  there  is,  of  course,  no  mini- 
mum fixed  by  the  law.  The  irrigated  farm  may  be 
as  small  as  seller  and  buyer  agree  upon. 

Eastern  readers  will,  perhaps,  desire  to  be  told  how  it 
happens  that  a  policy  avowedly  undertaken  with  the 
object  of  making  homes  on  the  public  domain  should 
provide  for  the  reclamation  of  lands  in  private  owner- 
ship, and  why  the  first  projects  undertaken  by  the  Gov- 
ernment deal  with  localities  in  which  the  major  portion 
of  the  land  is  privately  owned. 

With  few  exceptions,  the  streams  on  which  it  is  pro- 
posed to  store  water  and  develop  power  have  long  been 
used  for  irrigation.  Their  entire  flow  at  low-water  stage 
is  diverted  each  year  into  canals  already  in  operation, 
while  an  amount  of  water  much  in  excess  of  their  low- 
water  flow  has  been  claimed  and  appropriated  in  accord- 
ance with  local  laws  and  customs.  As  a  practical  ques- 
tion, it  is  found  utterly  impossible  to  store  the  flood 
waters  of  such  streams  without  interfering  with  vested 
rights,  unless  it  be  frankly  conceded  at  the  outset  that 
private  lands  dependent  on  this  source  of  supply  shall 
satisfy  their  reasonable  needs  from  the  new  works,  paying 
the  Government  therefor  in  just  the  same  manner  that 
the  settlers  on  public  lands  are  required  to  do. 

304 


PREPAEING  HOMES  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

As  a  rule,  there  are  three  classes  of  lands  within  reach 
of  every  stream  in  the  arid  region,  viz. :  first,  those  owned 
by  earliest  appropriators,  which  have  an  abundance  of 
water;  second,  those  owned  by  later  appropriators,  which 
have  sufficient  water  for  a  shori;  time  each  season  and  a 
claim  for  more  water  when  it  happens  to  be  in  the 
stream ;  third,  those  who  have  no  water  at  all,  and  cannot 
have  until  the  full  storage  and  pumping  possibilities  of 
the  stream  and  locality  shall  be  realized  by  means  of 
national  irrigation.  Taking  the  arid  region  as  a  whole, 
the  third  class  of  land  is  much  the  largest,  and  it  was  for 
the  benefit  of  this  class  that  the  movement  was  under- 
taken primarily.  But  if  the  Government  should  shut 
its  eyes  to  the  claims  of  the  second  class  it  would  do  a 
grave  injustice  and  have  endless  litigation  on  its  hands. 
This  would  inevitably  follow,  since  the  water  which  the 
Government  proposes  to  store  or  to  pump  is  absolutely 
the  only  water  which  can  ever  be  made  available  for  the 
use  of  these  lands  now  in  private  ownership,  but  re- 
ceiving only  partial  and  very  unsatisfactory  irrigation. 
That  is  one  aspect  of  the  case,  and  the  commonest  aspect. 
But  take  another  where  the  issue  is  more  sharply  defined. 

There  are  streams  where  every  drop  of  water  which  can 
possibly  be  stored  will  be  required  to  irrigate  lands  now 
in  private  ownership.  These  lands  were  mostly  taken 
up  by  those  who  sought  to  make  homes  in  good  faith 
on  the  public  domain.  They  settled  under  laws  deliber- 
ately enacted  by  Congress.  If  those  laws  proved  to  be  an 
invitation  to  disaster,  it  is  certainly  not  the  fault  of  the 
homeseekers.  They  depended  for  water  upon  speculative 
corporations  chari;ered  under  the  law  and  vested  with 
X  305 


THE   CONQUEST  OF  AKID  AMEEICA 

sweeping  franchises  and  rights  in  the  most  precious  ele- 
ment of  natural  wealth.  These  speculative  corporations 
frequently  oversold  their  supply  and  more  frequently 
went  bankrupt  before  they  had  finished  their  works. 
Again,  the  homeseekers  were  not  responsible  for  the  situ- 
ation in  which  they  found  themselves.  Indeed,  it  very 
often  happened  that  they  had  paid  for  their  water  rights 
in  advance,  thus  furnishing  the  speculators  with  the 
capital  on  which  to  speculate  and  exploit  the  unfortunate 
settlers. 

Now,  then,  to  insist  that  the  Government  shall  appro- 
priate the  only  water  that  can  ever  be  brought  to  these 
private  lands,  and  take  that  water  away  to  public  lands 
where  nobody  lives,  would  be  so  palpably  unjust  that  the 
proposition  could  not  possibly  find  an  advocate  or  de- 
fender among  those  who  know  the  facts.  It  therefore 
becomes  necessary  not  only  to  irrigate  lands  of  which  a 
part  are  in  private  ownership,  but  it  will  sometimes  be 
necessary  to  irrigate  lands  of  which  all  are  in  private 
ownership.  Not  to  do  so  would  be  an  act  of  injustice, 
of  inhumanity.  It  would  put  the  Government  in  the  un- 
tenable position  of  punishing  one  class  of  its  citizens  in 
order  that  another  class  may  be  benefited.  With  one 
hand  it  would  hold  out  the  hope  of  independence  to  pros- 
pective settlers  who  have  not  yet  left  their  eastern  or 
foreign  homes,  while  with  the  other  hand  it  would  de- 
prive some  of  our  best  and  bravest  pioneers  of  their  only 
chance  to  win  the  independence  they  have  fought  for. 
This  would,  of  course,  be  unthinkable. 


806 


PREPARING  HOMES  FORTHE  PEOPLE 

Salt  River  Project,  Arizona. 

The  lands  to  be  watered  by  the  great  system  in  this 
valley,  of  which  the  Roosevelt  dam  in  Tonto  Basin  will 
be  the  foundation,  are  largely  in  private  ownership,  but 
when  the  present  plans  of  storage  and  diversion  shall  be 
supplemented  by  the  powerful  pumping  plant  which  the 
Government  has  in  contemplation,  the  total  area  re- 
claimed will  be  almost  equally  divided  between  private 
lands  and  those  now  belonging  to  the  public  domain. 

The  Roosevelt  dam  closes  a  narrow  canyon,  which  will 
be  flooded  to  the  extent  of  14,000  acres.  This  will  create 
the  largest  artificial  reservoir  in  the  United  States.  Its 
capacity  will  be  400,000,000,000  gallons,  or  1,300,000 
acre  feet, — ^three  times  as  great  as  the  capacity  of  the 
Wachusett  reservoir  which  supplies  the  city  of  Boston, 
and  twice  as  great  as  the  famous  Croton  dam  which  sup- 
plies the  city  of  New  York.  Owing  to  the  extreme  dry- 
ness of  the  climate,  the  nature  of  the  soil,  and  the  high 
degree  of  evaporative  losses,  six  or  seven  acre  feet  per 
annum  are  required  for  irrigation,  so  that  the  amount  of 
water  stored  will  increase  the  usefulness  of  the  Salt 
River  for  irrigation  to  the  extent  of  about  200,000  acres. 

The  dam  is  of  solid  masonry,  both  foundation  and 
superstructure  being  built  of  sandstone.  All  materials 
are  found  on  the  site,  even  the  cement  being  manufac- 
tured by  a  special  plant  located  on  the  ground.  The 
situation,  in  a  deep  canyon  with  lofty,  precipitous  sides, 
and  with  a  wide  valley  above,  gives  an  enormous  storage 
capacity  in  proportion  to  the  dimensions  of  the  dam. 
The  impounding  structure  is  built  in  a  circular  curve, 

307 


THE   CONQUEST  OF  AEID  AMERICA 

convex  up  stream,  with  a  total  height  of  270  feet,  a  length 
at  the  base  of  only  200,  and  at  the  top  of  653  feet,  with 
a  thickness  of  165  feet  at  the  base  and  16  feet  at  the 
top.  Spillways  are  excavated  in  solid  rock  on  both 
sides;  these  will  be  bridged,  and  a  road  will  traverse  the 
bridges  and  the  crest  of  the  dam. 

An  allotment  of  $3,600,000  was  made  for  this  work 
from  the  reclamation  fund.  The  settler  must  pay  about 
$20  per  acre  for  a  water  right  which  represents  his 
share  in  the  ownership  of  the  completed  system.  This 
price  he  is  to  pay  in  ten  annual  instalments  without 
interest.  In  addition  to  this,  the  settler  purchasing  pri- 
vate lands  must  pay  a  price  which  varies  with  locality 
and  quality  of  the  soil,  ranging  from  $25  to  $100  per 
acre.* 

Colorado  River  Project, 

The  Colorado  Eiver  is  nature's  great  gift  to  the  South- 
west and,  by  the  way,  it  is  not  in  the  State  of  Colorado,, 
but  in  Arizona,  California,  and  Mexico.  For  ages  it 
has  flowed  through  the  most  desolate  wastes  in  North 
America,  a  region  which  has  been  popularly  regarded  as 
worthless  and  hopeless.  During  the  past  thirty  years 
private  enterprise  has  tried  to  make  some  use  of  its  tur- 
bid flood.  Only  in  the  wonderful  Imperial  Valley  of 
California,  and  in  limited  areas  below  Yuma  in  Arizona, 
has  there  been  any  result  approaching  success,  and  the 

*  Consult  alphabetical  index  for  full  description  of  Salt  River 
Valley  and  other  localities  where  government  reclamation 
works  are  building. 


PREPARING  HOMES  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

chief  value  of  these  experiments  has  been  to  demonstrate 
how  little  can  be  done  by  individual  effort  and  how  much 
could  be  accomplished  if  the  resources  of  the  Nation  were 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  problem.  The  lesson  has  been 
learned ;  the  Nation  has  put  its  hand  to  the  task. 

A  great  weir,  or  diverting  dam,  built  after  the  manner 
of  those  which  have  done  good  service  on  the  Nile,  is  now 
in  course  of  construction  in  the  main  channel  of  the 
stream,  twenty-two  miles  above  Yuma.  It  will  occupy 
a  wide  but  rocky  gorge  with  solid  natural  abutments. 
The  height  of  this  weir,  which  bears  the  official  name  of 
"the  Laguna,"  is  but  ten  feet  above  low  water.  Two 
canals  will  be  taken  out  at  this  point,  one  supplying 
irrigation  to  the  Arizona  side  of  the  river,  the  other  to 
the  California  side.  The  weir  will  create  a  settling  basin 
above,  in  which  the  heavy  silt  of  the  river  will  be  depos- 
ited during  the  greater  portion  of  the  year,  to  be  flushed 
out  and  sent  down  to  the  Gulf  at  the  time  of  the  annual 
flood.  Extensive  levees  will  be  built  on  both  banks  to 
project  irrigated  lands  from  inundation,  and  comprehen- 
sive drainage  systems  will  be  provided  wherever  necessary 
as  a  means  of  supplementing  natural  drainage.  Ulti- 
mately, the  floods  will  be  largely  stored  upon  the  higher 
sources  of  the  stream.  When  the  entire  water  supply  is 
utilized  in  the  most  scientific  and  economical  way,  nearly 
two  million  acres  will  be  irrigated  by  this  great  river 
system,  as  follows:  Above  the  Grand  Canyon  (in  Wyom- 
ing, Colorado,  Utah,  New  Mexico,  and  Arizona)  470,- 
000  acres;  below  the  Grand  Canyon  (in  Arizona  and 
California)  811,000  acres;  in  the  Republic  of  Mexico, 
688,000  acres.    As  navigation  must  be  made  subordinate 

309 


THE  CONQUEST  OF  ARID  AMERICA 

to  the  higher  interests  of  irrigation,  a  new  treaty  will  be 
required  with  Mexico. 

The  project,  as  now  planned,  will  cost  about  $3,000,- 
000,  but  the  greater  Colorado  system  which  will  develop 
in  course  of  time,  and  which  will  comprehend  the  whole 
stream  from  its  mountain  sources  in  the  north  to  its  out- 
let in  the  Gulf,  will  require  an  expenditure  of,  approxi- 
mately, $20,000,000.  Even  then  it  will  return  its  cost 
several  times  over  every  year  in  dollars  and  cents,  to 
say  nothing  of  its  contribution  to  civilization  in  a  higher 
way. 

The  cost  of  water  rights  in  the  district  to  be  irrigated 
first  will  be  $35  an  acre,  which  includes  the  settler's 
share  in  the  expense  of  drainage  and  flood  protection. 
It  is  likely  that  the  cost  will  lessen  as  the  project  is  en- 
larged to  cover  greater  areas.  Much  of  the  choicest  land 
has  already  passed  into  private  ownership,  but  a  con- 
siderable area  still  remains  open  to  entry  under  the  land 
laws.  The  larger  portion  of  the  land  ultimately  to  be 
reclaimed  belongs  to  the  public  domain.  IJnimproved 
land  in  private  ownership  will  cost  the  settler  from  $50 
to  $100  an  acre,  in  addition  to  the  water  right,  and  is 
richly  worth  it.  It  is  susceptible  of  the  most  intense 
cultivation  and  certain  to  be  closely  settled  in  small 
farms. 

Klamath  Project,  Oregon  and  California. 

Lying  on  both  sides  of  the  boundary  between  Cali- 
fornia and  Oregon,  the  work  to  be  done  on  "  the  Klamath 
project "  will  be  of  immense  benefit  to  both  those  States. 

310 


PREPARING  HOMES  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

This  region  lies  at  an  elevation  of  from  4000  to  5000 
feet,  and  is  therefore  suited  only  to  hardy  crops.  The 
arable  land  is  contained  in  a  chain  of  valleys  lying  be- 
tween rocky  mountains,  all  more  or  less  covered  with 
noble  pine  and  hemlock  forests.  It  is  a  land  of  snow, 
and  of  clear,  cold,  rushing  rivers.  The  soil  consists 
of  decomposed  lava  and  volcanic  ash,  carried  by  the 
streams  into  the  valleys. 

The  plans  involve  the  construction  of  two  great  dams 
for  the  creation  of  reservoirs ;  the  partial  drainage  of  two 
interstate  lakes  and  the  uncovering  of  the  arable  marsh 
lands  on  their  margins;  and  the  use  of  the  abundant 
water  power  to  pump  water  from  one  of  the  lakes  into  a 
near-by  valley. 

The  full  development  of  the  work  will  result  in  the 
reclamation  of  about  300,000  acres  of  land,  at  a  cost  of 
about  $17  an  acre.  A  large  proportion  of  these  are 
public  lands.  The  plans  for  the  project  have  been  ap- 
proved and  funds  set  aside  for  the  work,  which  wiU 
soon  be  commenced. 

The  Uncompahgre  Project,  Colorado. 

In  the  picturesque  and  prosperous  region  on  the  west- 
ern slope  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  the  Government  is 
engaged  in  completing  one  of  its  most  notable  enterprises, 
officially  known  as  "the  Uncompahgre  project."  Water 
is  taken  from  the  Gunnison  River,  conducted  through  the 
hitherto  impassable  mountains  by  means  of  a  tunnel,  and 
then  turned  into  the  channel  of  the  Uncompahgre  River, 
to  be  diverted  into  canals  and  spread  over  the  valleys 

311 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  AEID  AMEKICA 

in  Montrose  and  Delta  counties.  It  is  an  example  of 
bold  engineering  amply  justified  by  the  value  of  the 
region  to  be  reclaimed,  for  there  is  no  fairer  spot  in  Arid 
America. 

The  larger  portion  of  the  land  is  in  private  ownership 
and  commands  high  prices,  owing  to  the  extraordinary 
returns  which  are  realized  in  the  fruit  industry.  The 
project  will  cost  about  $2,500,000  and  water  is  expected 
to  be  available  in  1908.  The  cost  of  water  rights  will 
be  about  $25  an  acre. 

Minidoha  and  Boise-Payette  Projects,  Idaho. 

Idaho  offers  ideal  conditions  for  national  irrigation 
enterprise,  for  it  is  wonderfully  favored  in  its  water 
supply,  as  well  as  in  its  great  valleys  of  fertile  soil.  Its 
comparatively  sparse  population  is  another  favoring  cir- 
cumstance, since  there  is  the  greater  opportunity  to  show 
large  and  striking  results  for  the  new  policy. 

The  Minidoka  project  contemplates  the  reclamation  of 
about  150,000  acres  of  public  land  lying  on  both  sides 
of  the  Snake  Eiver  in  southern  Idaho.  This  land  is  near 
the  Oregon  Short  Line  Railroad,  in  an  altitude  of  about 
4200  feet  above  sea  level.  A  dam  is  in  course  of  con- 
struction across  Snake  Eiver  which  will  raise  the  water 
sufficiently  to  irrigate  the  lower  valleys.  The  large  water 
power  will  be  utilized  to  operate  a  pumping  plant  and 
thus  reclaim  the  higher  levels.  It  is  expected  that  the 
system  will  be  at  the  service  of  settlers  in  the  spring  of 
1906  and  that  the  cost  of  water  rights  will  be  about  $26 
an  acre. 

812 


GOVERNMENT  PROJECT  IN  OREGON.— I.  Adams  Canal.    2.  Tule  Lake. 


PKEPARING  HOMES  FOE  THE  PEOPLE 

Two  townsites  have  been  reserved  along  the  proposed 
extension  of  the  Oregon  Short  Line  and  within  the  tract 
to  be  irrigated.  Entries  are  limited  to  forty  acres  within 
a  mile  and  a  half  of  these  townsites,  and  to  eighty  acres 
on  all  other  parts  of  the  tract. 

A  project  of  even  greater  importance  is  that  which  is 
known  as  the  "  Boise-Payette/'  which  will  irrigate  a 
vast  area  in  the  most  populous  part  of  the  State,  near 
the  cities  of  Boise,  Nampa,  and  Caldwell.  The  Boise 
and  the  Payette  are  already  extensively  used  for  irriga- 
tion, but  it  is  proposed  to  regulate  their  flow  by  storage 
works  and  largely  increase  their  usefulness.  The  total 
area  to  be  irrigated  is  estimated  at  370,000  acres,  the 
greater  part  of  which  is  in  private  ownership.  It  is  a 
case  where  the  Government  is  combining  a  number  of 
small  systems  which  had  tapped,  but  not  fully  developed, 
the  resources  of  the  basin,  into  one  comprehensive  and 
exhaustive  system  of  works.  This  enterprise  will  give  a 
tremendous  impetus  to  the  growth  of  southern  Idaho 
and  make  it  one  of  the  greatest  irrigated  districts  in  the 
West. 

Milh  River,  Fort  Buford,  and  Huntley  Projects,  Montana. 

Montana  people  indulge  the  confident  hope  that  there 
will  ultimately  be  more  land  under  government  irriga- 
tion in  that  State  than  in  any  other  part  of  the  Union. 
Plans  already  in  contemplation  will  multiply  the  present 
agricultural  area  five  or  six  times  over.  But  if  the 
possibilities  are  great,  the  day  of  realization  is  placed 
some   distance   in  the   future   because   of   international 

313 


THE   CONQUEST  OF  ARID  AMERICA 

difficulties,  as  well  as  by  the  magnitude  of  the  opportu- 
nity, which  calls  for  a  very  large  expenditure. 

The  most  important  project  yet  outlined  in  Montana 
is  that  which  proposes  to  utilize  the  waters  of  Milk  River 
near  the  Canadian  border.  As  in  the  case  of  the  Rio 
Grande  in  New  Mexico  and  the  Rio  Colorado  in  Cali- 
fornia, international  questions  have  arisen  here  which 
delay  development.  Thus  far  the  Government  has 
undertaken  to  irrigate  only  so  much  land  as  may  be  done 
from  the  usual  flow  of  the  stream  without  storage.  This 
amounts  to  60,000  acres.  It  is  mostly  public  land  and 
can  be  reclaimed  at  a  cost  of  about  $15  an  acre,  which 
makes  it  one  of  the  cheapest  propositions  open  to  the 
settler.  The  district  is  traversed  by  the  Great  Northern 
Railway  for  a  distance  of  seventy-five  miles,  the  chief 
seat  of  activity  being  near  the  town  of  Malta.  When  the 
larger  development  is  undertaken,  water  will  be  stored 
in  St.  Mary  Lakes,  whence  it  will  be  conducted  by  a 
large  canal  into  the  Marias  River,  a  tributary  of  the 
Milk.  The  completion  of  the  whole  comprehensive  pro- 
ject will  involve  a  cost  of  between  $3,000,000  and 
$4,000,000. 

The  Fort  Buford  project,  although  generally  credited 
to  North  Dakota,  lies  chiefly  in  eastern  Montana.  It 
will  be  watered  from  the  Yellowstone.  Of  the  total  area 
(64,144  acres)  27,404  acres  are  in  private  ownership, 
22,665  in  public  ownership,  and  14,075  owned  by  the 
Railroad.  The  lands  lie  in  a  long  strip  on  the  west  side 
of  the  Yellowstone,  sixty-five  miles  long  and  five  miles 
wide  at  the  widest  part.  The  cost  of  water  rights  will  be 
about  $30  an  acre. 

814 


PREPARING  HOMES  FOE  THE  PEOPLE 

Construction  has  begun  on  the  reclamation  of  35,000 
acres  with  the  waters  of  the  Yellowstone  and  Bighorn. 
This  is  known  as  ''the  Huntley  project."  The  Indians 
are  to  be  provided  with  land  in  severalty,  after  which 
there  will  be  an  opportunity  for  settlers.  Water  rights 
will  cost  about  $30  an  acre,  a  cost  amply  justified  by 
the  value  of  the  lands. 

North  Platte  Projects,  Wyoming  and  Nebraska. 

What  is  known  as  the  "  North  Platte  "  or  *'  Interstate 
project"  aims  at  the  reclamation  of  a  vast  area  lying 
on  both  sides  of  the  North  Platte  River  for  a  distance 
of  two  hundred  and  ten  miles.  There  are  over  half  a 
million  acres  in  Wyoming  and  about  a  quarter  of  a 
million  acres  in  Nebraska  to  be  prepared  for  cultivation 
by  this  single  enterprise.  The  scheme  involves  the  con- 
struction of  three  permanent  dams,  two  temporary  diver- 
sion dams,  three  outlet  tunnels  in  solid  rock  formation, 
and  several  great  distributing  canals.  The  first  and 
greatest  of  these  dams  is  "the  Pathfinder,"  so  named  in 
honor  of  General  Fremont,  situated  in  the  great  canyon 
of  the  Platte,  ten  miles  above  Alcova,  Wyoming.  It 
will  require  four  years  to  complete  it. 

Truckee-C arson  Project,  Nevada, 

What  is  known  as  "  the  Truckee-Carson  project "  will 
ultimately  irrigate  375,000  acres  at  a  cost  of  about  $9,- 
000,000.  Nine  years  will  be  required  to  bring  it  to  com- 
pletion.   The  portion  of  the  works  put  into  operation  on 

315 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  ARID  AMERICA 

June  17th,  1905,  will  distribute  water  to  about  50,000 
acres  and  represents  a  cost  of  about  $1,750,000. 

The  main  canal  now  in  operation  diverts  the  water 
from  the  channel  of  the  Truckee  at  a  point  twenty-four 
miles  east  of  Reno  and  conveys  it  through  the  divide  to 
the  Carson  River,  a  distance  of  thirty-one  miles.  This 
canal  has  a  capacity  for  the  first  six  miles  of  its  course 
of  1400  cubic  feet  per  second,  or  70,000  miner's  inches 
under  a  four-inch  pressure,  and,  for  the  remainder  of 
its  course,  of  1200  cubic  feet  per  second.  There  are  three 
tunnels,  all  lined  with  concrete,  as  are  two  miles  of  the 
canal  outside  of  the  tunnels.  The  main  canal  discharges 
its  water  into  a  natural  reservoir  on  the  Carson  and  flows 
thence  four  and  one-half  miles  to  the  diversion  dam  at 
the  head  of  the  distributing  system,  where  it  is  led  out 
upon  the  land  in  two  wide-reaching  canals,  one  on  each 
side  of  the  river.  The  canal  on  the  north  side  has  a 
capacity  of  450  cubic  feet  per  second;  that  on  the  south 
side,  a  capacity  of  1500  cubic  feet  per  second.  With  their 
main  branches,  these  waterways  will  ultimately  have  a 
total  length  of  over  90  miles,  while  the  laterals  and  drain- 
ditches  to  be  constructed  in  Carson  Sink  Valley  alone 
will  aggregate  fully  1200  miles. 

The  dam  in  the  Carson  at  the  head  of  the  distributing 
system  is  something  to  bring  a  smile  of  satisfaction  to 
the  faces  of  those  who  have  known  the  crude  brush 
dams  of  the  pioneers  and  the  endless  difficulties  which 
arose  from  them.  This  government  dam  is  a  solid  con- 
crete structure,  built  for  a  thousand  years.  It  furnishes 
an  absolute  guaranty  of  a  permanent  water  supply  to 


816 


PEEPARING  HOMES  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

the  settlers.  This,  indeed,  is  the  character  of  all  the 
work  the  Government  has  done. 

The  land  to  be  irrigated  is  located  in  a  number  of 
valleys  along  the  Truckee  and  Carson  Rivers,  extending 
on  each  side  from  the  Central  Pacific  Railroad,  the 
greatest  distance  from  the  road  being  twenty-five  miles. 
The  soil  is  adapted  to  alfalfa  and  other  forage  crops, 
potatoes,  onions,  beets,  and  other  vegetables,  apples,  pears, 
berries,  and  similar  hardy  fruit. 

Nearly  all  the  land  now  irrigated  was  public  property 
until  recently  filed  upon,  after  the  works  were  under- 
taken. Some  of  it  is  still  open,  but  this  condition  will 
not  continue  long.  No  price  is  charged  for  the  land, 
except  filing  fees,  which  are  nominal.  But  the  settler 
must  repay  the  cost  of  irrigation  in  ten  annual  instal- 
ments, without  interest.  This  amounts  to  $26  an  acre, 
of  which  about  $10  an  acre  has  been  incurred  by  the 
provision  of  drainage  facilities,  made  imperatively  neces- 
sary as  a  means  of  removing  the  heavy  alkali  deposits. 
The  settler  is  fortunate  to  be  able  to  make  his  home  where 
conditions  have  been  scientifically  ascertained  in  advance 
and  where  the  best  engineering  skill,  together  with  abun- 
dant capital,  have  been  available  to  make  the  most 
thorough  preparation  for  his  success. 

Hondo  Project,  New  Mexico. 

The  construction  of  efficient  and  enduring  reclama- 
tion works  in  Arizona  and  New  Mexico  presents  prob- 
lems peculiar  to  those  regions.  The  torrential  character 
of  the  streams,  with  their  powerful  floods  in  the  rainy 

317 


THE   CONQUEST  OF  AEID  AMEEICA 

season,  the  heavy  silt  carried,  the  absence  of  rain  during 
the  major  portion  of  the  year,  and  the  consequent  de- 
pendence of  agriculture  upon  water  storage,  make  special 
constructions  necessary  in  all  branches  of  the  work. 

The  principal  project  upon  which  the  Government  is 
engaged  in  New  Mexico,  is  known  as  "the  Hondo  proj- 
ect," and  is  situated  on  the  Hondo  River,  a  tributary 
of  the  Pecos,  twelve  miles  southwesterly  from  Roswell, 
in  Chaves  County.  Roswell  is  the  seat  of  this  county, 
and  is  on  the  Pecos  Valley  &  Northeastern  Railroad. 
The  tract  to  be  reclaimed  consists  of  about  10,000  acres, 
almost  entirely  in  private  ownership.  The  total  cost 
is  estimated  at  $275,000,  or  $27.50  per  acre. 

The  works  consist  of  a  storage  reservoir  on  the  north 
side  of  the  Hondo  River,  with  appropriate  canals.  The 
Rio  Hondo  Reservoir  Water  IJsers  Association  has  been 
formed,  has  secured  the  subscription  of  10,000  acres, 
and  is  co-operating  with  the  government  engineers.  The 
owners  of  private  irrigation  schemes  opposed  the  govern- 
ment project  strongly,  and  the  opposition  ceased  only 
when  a  flood  washed  out  the  private  dams  and  canals; 
then  the  settlers  begged  the  Government  to  come  in 
and  save  their  apple  and  peach  orchards.  This  the  Rec- 
lamation Service  is  doing,  and  has  hastened  the  work 
as  much  as  possible.  The  work  is  now  well  forward,  and 
the  water  will  soon  be  ready  for  delivery  from  the  new 
canals. 

Bismarck  and  Buford-Trenton  Projects,  North  Dakota. 

In  western  North  Dakota  a  number  of  projects  are 
being  developed  for  the  reclamation  of  flat  lands  lying 

318 


PREPARING  HOMES  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

at  considerable  elevations  above  the  Missouri  River. 
These  projects  involve  the  most  extensive  use  of  pumping 
plants  yet  undertaken,  but  this  obstacle  will  be  overcome 
by  the  use  of  the  cheap  and  abundant  coal  taken  from 
public  lands  near  by. 

The  Bismarck  project,  near  the  city  of  Bismarck,  in- 
volves the  reclamation  of  about  15,000  acres,  mostly 
private  lands,  $250,000  having  been  set  apart  for  the 
work. 

The  Buford-Trenton  pumping  project  will  reclaim 
lands  on  the  north  side  of  the  Missouri  River,  between  the 
State  boundary  and  Williston.  About  18,000  acres  are 
reclaimable,  at  a  cost  of  a  little  over  $16  per  acre. 


Malheur  Project,  Oregon. 

No  State  offers  greater  attractions  for  national  enter- 
prise, in  the  way  of  large  areas  of  fertile  desert  lands  and 
abundant  water  supply,  than  Oregon.  It  is,  perhaps,  un- 
fortunate for  the  State  that  so  many  of  the  best  irriga- 
tion propositions  were  allowed  to  be  undertaken  by  pri- 
vate enterprise  under  the  "  Carey  Act,''  thus  shutting 
the  Reclamation  Service  out  of  a  large  parii  of  its  best 
field  of  operations. 

The  enterprise  known  as  "  the  Malheur  project "  is 
the  principal  government  undertaking  in  Oregon.  The 
lands  lie  in  the  east-central  pari;  of  the  State,  on  the 
Malheur  River,  in  the  valley  of  the  same  name,  on  both 
sides  of  the  river,  and  extending  from  the  town  of  Vale 
to  the  Snake  River.  About  100,000  acres  will  be  re- 
claimed, at  a  cost  of  about  $30  an  acre. 

819 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  ARID  AMERICA 

The  elevation  is  from  2150  to  2350  feet.  The  lands 
are  said  to  be  exceptionally  fertile,  and  lie  partly  in  the 
valley  and  partly  on  the  benches.  Nearly  half  are  public 
lands.  The  district  to  be  irrigated  lies  near  Payette, 
Idaho,  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  river,  and  the  condi- 
tions are  similar. 

The  method  of  reclamation  will  be  by  storing  the  sum- 
mer flow  of  the  Malheur  and  its  tributaries  in  reservoirs 
at  the  head  of  the  drainage  basin,  which  can  be  done 
without  injury  to  present  water  users.  The  present  plans 
contemplate  works  on  the  Owyhee  and  Willow  Creek, 
both  being  tributaries  of  the  Malheur,  and  are  capable  of 
considerable  extension. 

Bellefourche  Project,  South  Dakota. 

Lying  on  both  sides  of  the  Bellefourche  River,  in  Butte 
and  Meade  counties.  South  Dakota,  lies  a  tract  of  irri- 
gable land  consisting  of  about  85,000  acres.  The  work 
of  its  reclamation  is  being  undertaken,  under  the  name 
of  the  '^  Bellefourche  project."  This  land  is  yet  princi- 
pally public  land,  and  has  had  little  value  hitherto  for 
anything  except  grazing.  The  cost  of  its  reclamation 
will  be  about  $30  an  acre.  The  region  is  well  supplied 
with  railroad  facilities,  three  lines  traversing  or  passing 
near  it. 

A  large  basin  east  of  the  town  of  Bellefourche  is  to 
be  converted  into  a  reservoir  by  the  construction  of  an 
earth  embankment,  riprapped  with  rock,  across  Owl 
Creek,  a  tributary  of  the  Bellefourche.  Other  water  sup- 
plies will  be  obtained  in  a  similar  manner  from  near-by 
creeks  and  brought  in  by  feeder  canals. 

320 


PREPARING  HOMES  FORTHE  PEOPLE 

Palouse  River  Project,  Washington. 

"The  Palouse  River  project"  is  the  principal  pro- 
ject now  under  way  in  Washington.  The  lands  lie  be- 
tween the  Columbia  River  on  the  west  and  the  Snake 
River  on  the  south,  and  extend  from  the  town  of  Connell 
to  the  town  of  Pasco.  About  100,000  acres  are  to  be  re- 
claimed, at  a  cost  of  about  $30  an  acre.  Most  of  the 
lands  are  in  private  ownership. 

The  summer  flow  of  the  Palouse  River  is  insufficient 
to  irrigate  these  lands,  and  it  is  therefore  necessary  to 
store  the  flood  waters.  This  will  be  done  by  a  series  of 
reservoirs.  The  lands  to  be  reclaimed  are  of  variable 
character,  those  in  the  upper  part  of  the  tract  having  a 
light  soil,  about  the  consistency  of  flour,  such  as  is  so 
prevalent  in  arid  regions.  In  the  lower  portion,  this  is 
mixed  with  a  large  proportion  of  sand. 

At  Connell  and  Eltopia  the  conditions  are  favorable 
for  pumping  water  to  higher  elevations  with  power  de- 
veloped by  a  drop  in  the  main  canal.  The  region  is  sur- 
rounded by  excellent  lands  on  which  dry  wheat  farming 
is  practiced  with  varying  success.  These  lands,  unfortu- 
nately, lie  too  high  to  be  irrigated  from  this  source.  The 
transportation  facilities  are  good. 

Shoshone  Project,  Wyoming, 

After  years  of  effort  to  bring  about  the  reclamation 

of  his  beautiful  domain  by  means  of  private  enterprise. 

Col.  William  F.  Cody  has  had  the  happiness  of  seeing 

Uncle  Sam  take  hold  of  the  work.    This  is  what  is  offi- 

Y  321 


THE   CONQUEST   OF  AEID  AMERICA 

cially  known  as  "  the  Shoshone  project.'^  It  involves  the 
reclamation  of  about  160,000  acres  of  fertile  lands  in 
Bighorn  County,  on  the  north  side  of  the  Shoshone 
River,  near  the  town  of  Cody. 

Nearly  all  this  land  had  been  segregated  under  the 
"  Carey  Act "  when  the  government  engineers  began  to 
consider  the  project ;  but  the  State  had  not  yet  begun  the 
work,  and  therefore  Telinquished  its  rights.  Col.  Cody 
also  transferred  his  rights  in  the  waters  of  the  Shoshone 
River  to  the  Government. 

The  main  diversion  dam  is  at  the  head  of  the  Box 
Canyon,  a  gorge  210  feet  deep,  85  feet  wide  on  the  bot- 
tom and  165  on  top.  The  water  will  be  spread  over  the 
bench  lands  lying  on  the  north  side  of  the  river  for  45 
miles.  These  works  are  among  the  largest  and  most 
important  yet  undertaken  by  the  Reclamation  Service. 

Where  More  Homes  Will  he  Made. 

The  foregoing  are  all  the  projects  which  have  been 
formally  approved  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  and 
money  set  aside  from  the  reclamation  fund  for  their  con- 
struction, or  work  already  begun.*  There  are  secondary 
projects  in  all  the  arid  States  and  Territories,  in  various 
conditions  of  forwardness,  many  of  which  involve  large 
engineering  constructions,  and  a  few  of  which  cover  vast 
areas.  It  is  impossible  to  give  them  more  than  the  brief- 
est reference  here. 

Arizona  has  the  San  Carlos  project,  which  was  care- 
fully considered,  but  laid  aside  for  the  Salt  River  pro- 
ject. It  will  reclaim  100,000  acres  on  the  San  Carlos 
*  Up  to  September,  1905. 


PREPARING  HOMES  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

River.  The  basin  of  the  Little  Colorado  River,  and  other 
promising  localities,  are  also  being  studied. 

It  is  possible  that  the  largest  of  all  the  government 
irrigation  projects  may  grow  out  of  the  investigations 
now  being  made  in  the  Sacramento  Valley,  in  California. 
It  would  be  diflScult  to  convey  an  adequate  idea  of  the 
immensity  of  the  task. 

Investigations  begun  on  the  western  slope  of  San  Diego 
County  are  the  first  undertaken  under  the  new  plan  of 
co-operation  between  local  irrigation  districts  and  the 
Reclamation  Service.  If  they  bring  results,  this  may 
be  the  beginning  of  a  new  day  in  the  irrigation  develop- 
ment of  Arid  America. 

Colorado  has  a  number  of  promising  projects.  On  the 
Grand  River,  near  the  City  of  Grand  Junction,  60,000 
acres  are  to  be  reclaimed.  The  White  River  project  in- 
volves 90,000  acres  in  Rio  Blanco  and  Routt  counties, 
near  the  town  of  Meeker.  A  chain  of  reservoir  sites  are 
being  planned  in  the  Rocky  Mountain  region  of  south- 
western Colorado,  for  the  purpose  of  controlling  the  flow 
of  the  Colorado  for  the  benefit  of  irrigation  upon  its  lower 
course. 

The  coming  project  in  Idaho  is  known  as  '^  the  Dubois 
project,"  for  the  reclamation  of  about  200,000  acres  in 
Blaine  and  Fremont  counties  from  the  headwaters  of  the 
Snake  River. 

Kansas  has  no  projects  now  under  construction,  but 
the  Government  is  investigating  the  underground  flow  of 
the  Arkansas  River  in  the  vicinity  of  Garden  City  and  an 
allotment  of  $49,903  has  been  made  for  the  purpose  of 
installing  a  pumping  plant  by  which  it  is  hoped  to  re- 


THE   CONQUEST  OF  ARID  AMERICA 

claim  about  2,000  acres.  The  success  of  this  undertaking 
is  expected  to  be  very  useful  in  the  teaching  of  scientific 
methods  to  the  farmers. 

Montana  has  a  number  of  promising  projects.  That  on 
the  Sun  River  is  expected  to  reclaim  about  200,000  acres 
of  public  lands. 

Reconnaissances  are  being  made  of  the  Niobrara  and 
Snake  Rivers,  northeastern  Nebraska. 

Extensive  surveys  of  the  Walker  and  Humboldt 
rivers  are  being  made  in  Nevada,  as  well  as  a  general 
investigation  of  the  problems  of  seepage  and  drainage  in 
that  State. 

New  Mexico  has  a  number  of  promising  projects.  The 
Urton  Lake  project,  in  Guadalupe  and  Chaves  Counties, 
will  open  about  60,000  acres  of  public  land  to  settlement. 
The  La  Plata  project  will  reclaim  50,000  acres  in  San 
Juan  County.  The  Las  Vegas  grant,  near  the  City  of 
Las  Vegas,  is  to  be  surrendered  to  the  Government  by  its 
owners  in  return  for  its  irrigation,  and  it  will  then  be 
open  to  settlers.  This  is  the  first  instance  of  the  kind  in 
the  history  of  the  irrigation  work. 

Work  in  North  Dakota  consists  of  a  general  search  for 
reservoir  sites  and  feasible  projects,  gaging  of  streams, 
and  examination  of  pumping  projects  in  the  western  por- 
tion of  the  State.  The  large  areas  of  good  coal  which  is 
easily  to  be  mined  upon  public  lands,  makes  this  region 
peculiarly  adapted  to  the  establishment  of  successful 
pumping  plants. 

Oklahoma  is  awake  to  the  advantages  of  national  irri- 
gation. Investigations  are  being  made  of  the  watersheds 
of  the  Cimarron,  Canadian,  and  other  rivers,  and  for 

324 


PREPARING  HOMES  FOR  THE  PEOPLE 

reservoir  sites  and  underground  waters  in  the  arid  region 
of  its  western  panhandle.  The  "  Otter  Creek  project " 
is  expected  to  reclaim  about  40,000  acres  of  Valley  land 
l3ring  south  of  Mountain  Park. 

The  secondary  projects  in  Oregon  are  principally  for 
the  reclamation  of  high-lying  valleys  in  more  or  less  re- 
mote districts.  Some  of  them  have  had  to  be  abandoned 
on  account  of  prohibitive  cost  of  the  work.  A  very  large 
area  is  involved.  Those  projects  which  seem  to  be  yet 
alive  at  this  time  are  the  Silver  Lake  project  near  the 
lake  of  that  name  in  Lake  County ;  the  Ana  River  project, 
between  Summer  and  Silver  lakes,  in  the  same  county; 
the  Chewaucan  project,  near  Paisley,  Lake  County;  and 
the  Silver  Creek  project,  near  the  town  of  Riley,  in  Har- 
ney County.        gincroit  LiJbranr 

South  Dakota  has  the  Cheyenne  project,  by  which  it 
is  expected  that  40,000  acres  will  ultimately  be  reclaimed, 
near  the  town  of  Edgemont. 

It  is  matter  of  regret  that  the  Utah  projects  cannot  be 
described  in  detail.  The  whole  water  system  of  the  State 
is  being  studied  and  works  planned  upon  a  comprehen- 
sive scale.  The  first  work  undertaken  will  doubtless  be 
the  lowering  of  the  level  of  Utah  Lake,  to  diminish  the 
evaporation  and  increase  its  sources  of  supply.  It  is 
estimated  that  by  this  means  the  irrigated  area  in  the 
Jordan  Valley  can  be  increased  60,000  acres.  Other 
projects  are  known  as  the  '^  Bear  Lake  "  and  '^  Straw- 
berry Valley"  projects,  both  extensive  and  important. 

Two  coming  projects  sustain  the  hope  of  the  people 
of  Washington.  The  Okanogan  project  contemplates 
the  reclamation  of  a  large  tract  in  the  county  and  from 

325 


THE   CONQUEST  OF  ARID  AMERICA 

the  river  of  that  name.  The  Big  Bend  project  is  one  of 
the  largest  in  the  Arid  West,  and  may  ultimately  involve 
a  million  acres,  in  the  bend  surrounded  by  the  Columbia 
River  on  the  west,  the  Snake  River  on  the  south,  and  the 
high  wheat  lands  of  the  Palouse  region  on  the  north  and 
east.  The  Yakima  Valley,  Priest  Rapids,  and  Kootenai 
Basin,  are  regions  where  the  water  supply  and  lands  are 
being  investigated,  j 

In  Wyoming,  the  Lake  De  Smet  project,  in  Johnson 
and  Sheridan  counties,  is  under  consideration.  Large 
areas  are  involved,  principally  in  private  ownership.  In 
the  Big  Bend  of  the  Wind  River  Mountains,  a  part  of 
the  Shoshone  Indian  Reservation,  there  are  about  230,000 
acres  of  good  lands,  the  reclamation  of  which  may  be 
undertaken  soon. 

The  plans  of  the  Reclamation  Service  are  developing  so 
rapidly  that  any  record  of  its  work  must  be  regarded  as 
merely  temporary.  Its  investigations  are  being  prose- 
cuted constantly  and  it  may  very  likely  happen  that 
some  of  its  most  important  undertakings  in  the  early 
future  will  be  such  as  are  not  mentioned  in  these  pages. 
Enough  has  been  said,  however,  to  indicate  the  varied 
character  of  its  work  and  to  furnish  the  intending  settler 
with  information  of  some  value. 


326 


CONCLUSION 
man's  partnership  with  god 

Some  one  has  said  that  God  never  made  a  world ;  that 
He  started  several,  including  the  one  on  which  we  dwell, 
but  that  He  depends  on  man,  working  in  partnership 
with  Him  and  in  harmony  with  the  laws  of  the  universe, 
to  bring  the  world  to  completion. 

There  are  conditions  in  Arid  America  which  make  men 
peculiarly  conscious  of  their  partnership  with  God  or 
Universal  Purpose.  They  seem,  indeed,  to  begin  where 
God  left  off  and  to  go  forward  with  the  actual  material 
creation  of  the  world.  Here,  the  English-speaking  race 
entered  into  a  new  environment.  Nature  had  done  what 
it  would,  then  withdrawn  and  left  its  unfinished  task  to 
the  ingenuity  of  man. 

The  waste  of  deseri;  and  mountain  has  been  nnsympa- 
thetically  called  "  the  land  that  God  forgot.''  Time  will 
show,  and  already  time  has  begun  to  show,  that  above 
all  other  sections  Arid  America  is  the  God-remembered 
land.  He  evidently  remembered  that  somewhere  there 
must  be  a  place  where  man  should  become  supremely 
alive  to  his  divinity — that  somewhere  he  must  be  driven 
by  the  club  of  necessity  into  a  brotherhood  of  labor — 
that  somewhere  the  material  must  be  blended  with  the 

327 


MAN'S  PAETNERSHIP  WITH  GOD 

spiritual  until  man  should  stand  erect,  the  conscious 
partnership  of  the  universe. 

The  first  thought  that  comes  to  the  man  of  insight  on 
viewing  the  region  is  the  utter  futility  of  individual 
effort  in  the  stupendous  struggle  with  nature.  There  is 
soil  fertile  and  enduring  heyond  that  of  any  other  land, 
but  nature  neglects  to  water  it  with  unfailing  rains. 
The  men  of  an  earlier  and  more  superstitious  age  would 
have  fallen  on  their  knees  in  prayer;  but  an  eternity  of 
such  prayers  would  bring  no  response  from  the  smiling 
sky.  Men  learn  from  their  environment  a  better  way  to 
pray. 

Conforming  their  methods  to  the  laws  of  the  universe 
and  entering  into  glad  partnership  with  God,  they  follow 
the  torrential  stream  to  its  mountain  sources,  discover 
the  reservoir  sites  which  nature  provided  at  the  right 
elevation  to  command  the  valley  and  to  furnish  power 
with  which  to  bring  the  hidden  water  from  the  bowels  of 
the  earth;  and  thus,  blending  science  with  religion,  and 
the  material  with  the  spiritual,  their  prayers  are  an- 
swered with  fullest  measure  of  blessings, — blessings,  as 
we  saw  in  earlier  pages,  infinitely  superior  to  those  which 
come  to  other  lands  by  dependence  upon  rainfall. 

This  process  not  only  brings  men  close  to  Divinity  in 
nature;  it  brings  them  close  to  Divinity  in  man. 
Brotherhood  becomes  compulsory, — they  must  work  to- 
gether, must  work  with  and  for  each  other  rather  than 
against  each  other.  They  are  enlisted  in  a  common  effort 
for  the  accomplishment  of  a  common  good.  The  welfare 
of  each  is  the  concern  of  all.  "  Bear  ye  one  another's  bur- 
dens "  is  the  stern  mandate  written  on  the  face  of  nature 


THE  CONQUEST   OF  ARID  AMERICA 

and  borne  on  the  voice  of  the  flood.  Men  are  compelled 
by  force  of  circumstances  to  labor  en  masse  and  in  har- 
mony with  the  imiverse. 

But  it  is  not  only  when  men  are  working  together  at  a 
common  task  that  they  are  conscious  of  the  divine  part- 
nership. The  man  who  works  intelligently  in  creating  his 
irrigated  farm  with  the  raw  materials  of  land  and  water, 
knows  that  in  this  smaller  sphere  he  is  engaged  in  finish- 
ing the  world.  He  feels  himself  to  be  an  instrument  in 
the  process  of  evolution.  His  constant  study  is  to  learn 
the  secret  of  his  environment  and  to  shape  his  industry 
in  such  a  way  as  to  attain  the  best  results.  If  he  were^ 
tilling  his  ancestral  acres  in  Maine  or  Kentucky,  he  would 
follow  the  methods  of  his  forefathers,  but  would  not  be 
driven  by  necessity  to  experiment  with  the  amount  of 
moisture  required  for  different  crops,  the  manner  of 
applying  it  to  orchard,  garden,  and  field,  the  temperatures 
of  water  and  soil,  or  the  drainage  of  his  land  by  natural 
and  artificial  means.  In  other  words,  he  would  not  be 
conscious  of  his  part  in  the  practical  evolution  of  nature's 
raw  materials  into  civilization's  finished  product. 

There  have  been  countless  instances  of  men  who  came 
from  the  stagnant  life  of  established  communities  to 
settle  in  such  progressive  colonies  as  Greeley,  Colorado, 
or  Riverside,  California,  and  developed  into  scientists  of 
the  most  practical  sort.  They  had  no  choice  in  the  mat- 
ter; they  must  adapt  themselves  to  new  conditions  in 
order  to  prosper.  In  so  doing,  they  necessarily  co-oper- 
ated with  Universal  Purpose  in  finishing  the  world. 

The  same  influence  is  dominant  in  the  formation  of 
institutions.     Laws  and  customs  must  conform  to  en- 


MAN'S  PARTNERSHIP  WITH   GOD 

yironment,  and  to  the  work  to  be  done  under  the  condi- 
tions which  environment  imposes.  The  first  requirement 
is  scientific  knowledge  of  these  conditions;  the  next, 
adaptation  of  institutions  in  conformity  with  these  as- 
certained facts. 

To  proceed  in  the  making  of  your  farm,  in  the  develop- 
ment of  a  great  region,  in  the  formation  of  institutions, 
by  knowledge  rather  than  by  chance,  is  a  profoundly  re- 
ligious thing.  Irrigation,  for  example,  is  a  religious 
rite.  Such  a  prayer  for  rain  is  intelligent,  scientific, 
worthy  of  man's  divinity.  And  it  is  answered.  To  put 
knowledge  in  place  of  superstition  is  the  first  step  which 
men  take  in  entering  into  partnership  with  God. 

All  labor  done  in  the  spirit  of  this  partnership  is  a 
blending  of  the  material  with  the  spiritual.  It  is  in- 
spired by  knowledge  of  universal  law;  it  aims  at  the 
accomplishment  of  results  in  line  with  Universal  Pur- 
pose. Then  labor  ceases  to  be  drudgery  and  becomes 
beautiful. 

And  the  relations  of  brotherhood  which  men  necessarily 
sustain  to  each  other  under  such  conditions  represent  the 
essence  of  religion,  for  they  are  inspired  by  the  love  of 
humanity. 

Men  have  too  often  proceeded  in  defiance  of  universal 
laws,  so  far  as  they  could  do  so  and  exist.  They  have 
wasted  the  bounty  of  nature  where  they  should  have  con- 
served it;  defaced  the  landscape  where  they  should  have 
beautified  it;  dissipated  their  strength  in  fighting  each 
other  where  they  should  have  combined  their  strength  and 
worked  together;  degraded  toil  where  they  should  have 
ennobled  and  glorified  it.    All  this  they  have  done  because 


THE   CONQUEST   OF   ARID   AMERICA 

no  imperative  necessity  compelled  them  to  make  the  ac- 
quaintance of  God  and  work  hand-in-hand  with  Him  in 
finishing  the  world. 

It  is  the  fortune  of  Arid  America  to  be  so  palpably 
crude  material  that  it  can  not  be  used  at  all,  save  upon 
the  divine  terms. 


THS  END. 


881 


APPENDIX  I 


NOTE  AS  TO  METHODS  OP  IRRIGATION 

To  those  who  are  unfamiliar  with  the  life  of  the  arid  region 
the  actual  process  of  irrigation  seems  a  deep  mystery.  They 
regard  it  as  an  effort  to  overturn  the  laws  of  nature,  and 
think  it  must  be  accompanied  by  a  struggle  as  severe  as  it  is 
inscrutable.  But  irrigation  is,  after  all,  a  perfectly  natural, 
and  even  a  familiar,  process.  The  man  who  waters  his  plat 
of  grass  and  the  woman  who  waters  her  door-yard  pansies 
are  irrigators  in  a  rude  and  humble  way.  The  citizen  who 
grumbles  at  the  sight  of  withered  lawns  in  a  public  park 
during  a  dry  summer  yearns  for  irrigation  without  knowing 
it.  A  generation  which  has  harnessed  the  lightning  should 
see  nothing  incongruous  in  the  ancient  expedient  of  storing 
the  rain  and  distributing  it  to  meet  the  varying  needs  of 
plants  which  nourish  human  life. 

The  control  of  water  for  irrigation  in  the  West  presents 
about  the  same  problems  to  the  engineer  as  the  control  of 
water  for  domestic  purposes  in  large  cities  and  towns.  The 
water  must  be  diverted  from  a  flowing  stream  at  a  level  suf- 
ficiently high  to  command  the  territory  to  be  irrigated  ;  or  it 
must  be  impounded  in  reservoirs  at  a  season  of  floods  or  un- 
usual flow,  such  as  occurs  everywhere  when  the  ice  and  snow 
are  melting ;  or  it  must  be  sought  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth 
by  means  of  wells  and  lifted  to  the  surface  by  pumps,  except 


APPENDIX   I 

in  the  case  of  artesian  waters,  which  flow  out  of  the  month  of 
the  well  by  reason  of  their  own  pressure. 

The  principal  difference  between  securing  a  supply  for  do- 
mestic and  for  agricultural  purposes  is  that  in  the  case  of  the 
former  the  water  must  be  as  pure  as  possible,  while  in  the 
case  of  the  latter  the  impurities  which  gather  in  ponds  and 
streams  have  a  distinct  commercial  value  as  fertilizers.  The 
sewage  of  Paris  is  used  for  irrigation  purposes  with  wonder- 
ful effect.  The  same  thing  is  done  at  Los  Angeles,  and 
doubtless  will  be  done  in  many  places  hereafter.  Neither  is 
it  necessary,  as  a  rule,  to  make  such  elaborate  provision  for 
the  distribution  of  water  through  underground  pipes  in  the 
case  of  agriculture  as  in  that  of  domestic  water  supply.  In 
the  vast  majority  of  instances  irrigation  water  flows  in  open 
channels.  Where  it  is  otherwise  it  is  because  the  precious 
fluid  is  scarce,  and  therefore  dear,  so  that  every  drop  must  be 
guarded  against  loss  by  evaporation  or  by  seepage  into  the 
ground. 

Irrigation  works  in  the  West  range  from  rude  and  simple 
ditches,  taking  their  supplies  from  mountain  brooks  where 
the  water  has  been  diverted  by  means  of  small  brush  dams,  to 
great  masonry  walls  which  block  the  outlet  of  deep  canyons, 
holding  back  the  water,  which  is  transported  through  pipes, 
flumes,  and  cemented  ditches  to  rich  lands  miles  away.  In  the 
one  case  the  works  have  been  constructed  by  a  small  association 
of  farmers,  using  their  own  labor  and  teams ;  in  the  other, 
millions  of  eastern  and  foreign  capital  have  been  invested. 
In  both  cases  the  water  is  led  through  main  canals  to  central 
points  in  the  territory  to  be  reclaimed.  These  mains  are  of 
all  sizes,  depending  entirely  upon  the  volume  of  water  re- 
quired. They  are  frequently  not  more  than  six  feet  wide, 
though  some  of  the  canals  in  the  San  Joaquin  Valley  are  one 
hundred  and  twenty  feet  in  width.  From  these  mains  lat- 
eral ditches  reach  out  in  various  directions.  The  individual 
farmer  taps  the  lateral  with  a  shallow  ditch,  usually  made 

884 


APPENDIX  I 

with  a  plongh,  and  thus  conducts  the  water  where  he  wants  it 
through  his  own  private  system  of  distributers.  The  man- 
agement of  the  waters,  when  the  system  has  once  been  per- 
fected, is  so  simple  that  a  child  can  attend  to  it.  Furnishing 
arid  lands  with  irrigation  facilities  is  really  a  less  formidable 
task  than  supplying  cities  with  water  for  domestic  and  fire 
purposes.  The  one  process  is  no  more  mysterious  and  un- 
natural than  the  other. 

Although  irrigation  is  both  ancient  and  universal,  the 
Anglo-Saxon  never  dealt  with  it  in  a  large  way  until  the  last 
half-century,  when  he  found  it  to  be  the  indispensable  condi- 
tion of  settlement  in  large  portions  of  western  America,  Aus- 
tralia, and  South  Africa,  Through  all  the  centuries  of  the 
past  the  art  has  been  the  exclusive  possession  of  Indian, 
Latin,  and  Mongolian  races.  Its  earliest  modern  traces  in 
this  country  are  found  in  the  small  gardens  of  the  Mission 
fathers  of  southern  California.  They  brought  the  method 
from  Mexico  and  taught  it  to  the  Indians.  But  the  real 
cradle  of  American  irrigation  as  a  practical  industry  is 
Utah. 

In  the  hands  of  the  Indians  and  Mexicans  of  the  South- 
west irrigation  was  a  stagnant  art,  but  the  white  population 
studied  it  with  the  same  enthusiasm  it  bestowed  upon  elec- 
tricity and  new  mining  processes.  The  lower  races  merely 
knew  that  if  crops  were  expected  to  grow  on  dry  land,  they 
must  be  artificially  watered.  They  proceeded  to  pour  on  the 
water  by  the  rudest  method.  The  Anglo-Saxon  demanded  to 
know  why  crops  required  water,  and  how  and  when  it  could 
best  be  supplied  to  meet  their  diverse  needs.  He  has  thus 
approached  by  gradual  steps  true  scientific  methods,  which 
are  producing  results  unknown  before  in  any  part  of  the 
world. 

The  earliest  method  of  irrigation  is  known  as  "  flooding," 
and  is  generally  applied  by  means  of  shallow  basins.  A  plot 
of  ground  near  the  river  or  ditch  from  which  water  is  to  be 


APPENDIX   I 

drawn  is  inclosed  by  low  embankments  called  checks.  These 
checks  are  multiplied  until  the  whole  field  is  covered.  The 
water  is  then  drawn  into  the  highest  basin,  permitted  to 
stand  until  the  ground  is  thoroughly  soaked,  and  then  drawn 
off  by  a  small  gate  into  the  next  basin.  This  process  is  re- 
peated until  the  entire  field  is  irrigated.  This  is  the  system 
practised  on  the  Nile,  where  the  basins  sometimes  cover  sev- 
eral square  miles  each,  while  in  the  West  they  are  often  no 
more  than  four  hundred  feet  square.  There  is  both  a  crude 
and  a  skilful  way  to  accomplish  the  operation  of  "flooding,  and 
there  is  a  wide  difference  in  the  results  obtained  by  the  two 
methods.  The  Indian  and  Mexican  irrigators,  in  their  igno- 
rance and  laziness,  seldom  attempt  to  grade  the  surface  of  the 
ground.  They  permit  water  to  remain  in  stagnant  pools 
where  there  are  depressions,  while  high  places  stand  out  as 
dusty  islands  for  generations.  All  except  very  sandy  soils 
bake  in  the  hot  sunshine  after  being  flooded,  and  the  crude 
way  to  remedy  the  matter  is  to  turn  on  more  water.  Water 
in  excess  is  an  injury,  and  both  the  soil  and  the  crops  re- 
sent this  method  of  treatment. 

The  skilful  irrigator  grades  the  soil  to  an  even  slope  of 
about  one  inch  to  every  hundred  inches,  filling  depressions 
and  levelling  high  places.  He  "  rushes  "  the  water  over  the 
plot  as  rapidly  as  possible,  and  when  the  ground  has  dried 
sufficiently  cultivates  the  soil  thoroughly,  thus  allowing  the 
air  to  penetrate  it.  The  best  irrigators  have  abandoned  the 
check  system  altogether,  and  have  invented  better  methods 
of  flooding  the  crops.  Cereals  and  grasses  must  always  be 
irrigated  by  flooding,  but  the  check  system  seems  likely  to 
remain  only  in  the  land  of  Spanish  speech  and  tradition,  where 
it  was  born.  In  Colorado  wheat  and  grass  are  generally  irri- 
gated by  a  system  of  shallow  plough  furrows  run  diagonally 
across  a  field.  The  water  is  turned  from  these  upon  the 
ground,  and  permitted  to  spread  out  into  a  hundred  small 
rills,  following  the  contour  of  the  land.     Some  farmers  be- 

336 


APPENDIX   I 

stow  great  pains  upon  this  method,  and  succeed  in  wetting 
the  ground  very  evenly.  Another  method  of  flooding  fields 
is  now  much  used  in  connection  with  alfalfa,  a  wonderful 
forage  plant  extensively  cultivated  throughout  the  arid  region. 
This  produces  three  crops  a  year  in  the  north  and  six  crops 
in  the  south,  and  is  not  only  eaten  by  stock,  but  by  poultry 
and  swine.  To  find  the  best  method  of  watering  this  valua- 
ble crop  has  been  the  object  of  careful  study  and  experiment 
in  the  West.  It  is  now  accomplished  by  means  of  shallow 
indentations  or  creases,  which  are  not  as  large  as  furrows,  but 
accomplish  the  same  purpose.  These  are  made  by  a  simple 
implement  at  intervals  of  about  twelve  inches.  They  effect  a 
very  thorough  and  even  wetting  of  the  ground. 

The  scientific  side  of  irrigation  is  to  be  studied  rather  in 
connection  with  the  culture  of  fruit  and  vegetables  than  with 
field  crops.  It  is  here  that  the  English-speaking  irrigators 
of  the  West  have  produced  their  best  results.  California  has 
accomplished  more  than  any  other  locality,  but  nothing  was 
learned  even  there  until  the  man  from  the  North  had  sup- 
planted the  Spanish  irrigator.  The  ideal  climatic  conditions 
of  California  attracted  both  wealth  and  intelligence  into  its 
irrigation  industry.  Scarcity  of  water  and  high  land  values 
operated  to  promote  the  study  of  ideal  methods.  Where 
water  is  abundant  it  is  carried  in  open  ditches,  and  little 
thought  is  given  to  the  items  of  seepage  through  the  soil 
and  loss  by  evaporation.  Under  such  conditions  water  is 
lavishly  used,  frequently  to  the  injury  rather  than  the  bene- 
fit of  crops.  But  in  southern  California  water  is  as  gold, 
and  is  sought  for  in  mountain  tunnels  and  in  the  beds  of 
streams.  A  thing  so  dearly  obtained  is  not  to  be  carelessly 
wasted  before  it  reaches  the  place  of  use.  Hence,  steep  and 
narrow  ditches  cemented  on  the  bottom,  or  steel  pipes  and 
wooden  flumes,  are  employed. 

This  precious  water  is  applied  to  the  soil  by  means  of 
small  furrows  run  between  the  trees  or  rows  of  vegetables. 
z  837 


APPENDIX   I 

The  ground  has  first  been  evenly  graded  on  the  face  of  each 
slope.  The  aim  of  the  skilful  irrigator  is  to  allow  the  water 
to  saturate  the  ground  evenly  in  each  direction,  so  as  to 
reach  the  roots  of  the  tree  or  plant.  The  stream  is  small, 
and  creeps  slowly  down  the  furrow  to  the  end  of  the  orchard, 
where  any  surplus  is  absorbed  by  a  strip  of  alfalfa,  which 
acts  like  a  sponge.  The  land  is  kept  thoroughly  cultivated, 
and  in  the  best  orchards  no  weed  or  spear  of  grass  is  ever 
seen ;  the  water  is  too  costly  to  waste  in  the  nourishment 
of  weeds.  Moreover,  it  is  desired  to  leave  the  soil  open  to 
the  action  of  air  and  sunshine.  Nowhere  in  the  world  is  so 
much  care  given  to  the  aeration  of  the  soil  as  in  the  irrigated 
orchards  and  gardens  of  the  West.  Too  much  water  reduces 
the  temperature  of  the  soil,  sometimes  develops  hard-pan,  and 
more  frequently  brings  alkali  to  the  surface.  For  these  rea- 
sons modern  science  has  enforced  the  economical  use  of 
water,  reversing  the  crude  Mexican  custom  of  prodigal  waste- 
fulness. The  success  of  the  furrow  method  depends  some- 
what upon  the  texture  of  the  soil,  and  there  are  places  where 
it  cannot  be  used  at  all.  Such  localities  are  not  considered 
favorable  to  fruit  culture. 

Of  late  years  in  California  the  application  of  water  by  fur- 
rows has  been  brought  to  a  marvellous  degree  of  perfection. 
What  is  known  as  the  "  Redlands  system  "  is  the  best  type 
of  irrigation  methods  known  in  the  world.  Under  this  sys- 
tem a  small  wooden  flume  or  box  is  placed  at  the  head  of 
the  orchard.  An  opening  is  made  opposite  each  furrow,  and 
through  this  the  water  flows  in  the  desired  quantity,  being 
operated  by  a  small  gate  or  slide.  The  aperture  regulates 
the  flow  of  water  accurately,  and  the  system  is  so  simple  that, 
after  it  is  once  adjusted,  its  operation  is  as  easy  as  the  turn- 
ing of  a  faucet.  The  farmer  who  grows  his  crops  on  a  fer- 
tile soil,  under  almost  cloudless  skies,  with  a  system  con- 
trolling the  moisture  as  effective  as  this,  may  be  said  to  have 
mastered  the  forces  of  nature.     The  quality  of  the  fruit  has 


APPENDIX   I 

improved  immensely  since  the  California  methods  were  per- 
fected. Every  fruit-grower  realizes  that  the  profit  in  his 
business  comes  mostly  from  the  first  grade  of  fruit.  Scien- 
tific irrigation  makes  it  possible  for  him  largely  to  increase 
the  percentage  of  the  best  fruit,  and  the  difference  which 
this  makes  in  the  earning  capacity  of  his  acres  is  surprising. 


/WCNUt 


^roa  WATER. 

UCM  ntU.  •TAf«»  OM  A  i.(mg 
MUX  SO  MICH  tk»  TO  PQEVCirT 
1««   ViATtH  TOsKMHO  rt. 


Other  methods  of  furrow  irrigation  have  been  devised 
which  are  scarcely  less  perfect  than  those  used  in  the  Cali- 
fornia orange  districts.  One  of  the  best  of  these  is  the  re- 
sult of  the  labors  and  experiments  of  Professor  A.  E.  Blount, 
of  the  Agricultural  College  at  Las  Cruces,  New  Mexico,  and 
is  illustrated  in  the  accompanying  diagram.  In  this  case  the 
water  is  carried  in  small  open  ditches,  and  the  furrows  are 

839 


APPENDIX   I 

extended  in  circles  around  each  tree,  but  the  water  is  never 
allowed  to  touch  the  bark.  This  method  is,  perhaps,  better 
adapted  to  the  general  needs  of  the  arid  region  than  the 
more  expensive  plan  of  the  Californians.  It  is  interesting  to 
note  that  the  modern  New  Mexico  method  was  developed  in 
the  midst  of  Indian  and  Spanish  settlements,  which  still  pur- 
sue the  methods  of  antiquity  without  the  slightest  abatement 
of  their  evils. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  results  of  irrigation,  in  a  social 
and  economic  way,  is  its  influence  upon  the  density  of  popu- 
lation. The  densest  population  in  the  eastern  States  obtains 
in  Rhode  Island,  where  there  are  two  hundred  and  seventy- 
six  persons  to  each  square  mile.  In  a  representative  locality 
of  southern  California,  which  is  in  the  midst  of  the  older 
settled  irrigated  districts,  there  are  five  hundred  persoms  to 
the  square  mile,  practically  all  of  them  engaged  in  horticult- 
ure by  means  of  irrigation.  The  Nile  lands  of  Egypt  sup- 
port a  population  of  twelve  hundred  and  twenty-seven  persons 
to  the  square  mile.  There  is,  therefore,  no  risk  whatever  in 
predicting  that  the  arid  lands  of  the  West  will  ultimately 
sustain  much  the  densest  population  in  the  United  States. 

While  the  perfect  conditions  for  the  irrigation  industry 
exist  only  in  an  arid  land,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  same 
methods  can  and  will  be  used  largely  in  the  eastern  portion 
of  the  United  States.  There  is  seldom  a  year  when  large 
districts  east  of  the  Mississippi  do  not  suffer  heavy  losses 
from  the  lack  of  rain  at  the  time  when  it  is  needed.  What 
irrigation  can  accomplish  under  such  conditions  has  been 
strikingly  illustrated  by  Dr.  Clarke  Gapen,  Superintendent  of 
the  State  Insane  Asylum  at  Kankakee,  Illinois.  This  gentle- 
man became  convinced  that  if  he  could  control  the  moisture 
during  the  dry  period  of  the  Illinois  summer,  he  could  readi- 
ly produce,  on  the  farm  operated  in  connection  with  the  pub- 
lic institution,  the  large  quantities  of  late  vegetables  which 

840 


APPENDIX   I 

he  bad  been  in  the  habit  of  purchasing  for  cash.  He  ob- 
tained an  inexpensive  pumping -plant  and  engaged  the  ser- 
vices of  a  practised  irrigator.  The  result  was  the  saving  of 
an  annual  expenditure  of  fifteen  thousand  dollars  for  farm 
products,  so  that  the  irrigation  system  more  than  paid  for  it- 
self the  first  year.  Dr.  Gapen  has  stated  that  the  experiment 
convinced  him  "  that  if  land  is  worth  one  hundred  dollars 
per  acre  in  Illinois  without  irrigation,  it  is  worth  five  hundred 
dollars  with  it."  If  this  enterprising  oflBcial  had  suggested 
ten  years  before  that  irrigation  was  necessary  in  Illinois,  he 
would  have  been  regarded  as  a  proper  subject  for  one  of  the 
padded  cells  in  his  own  asylum. 

The  local  application  of  irrigation  is  now  frequently  dis- 
cussed in  the  farm  journals  of  Ohio,  New  York,  and  other  east- 
ern States.  The  art  has  been  employed  for  a  number  of  years 
in  the  most  profitable  market-gardens  about  Boston.  The 
western  friends  of  irrigation  have  the  utmost  confidence  that 
during  the  next  century  their  methods  will  be  extensively 
adopted  in  the  East,  resulting  in  a  very  great  reduction  of  the 
average  farm  unit,  in  the  assurance  of  much  larger  and  better 
crops,  and  in  wonderful  social  gains. 


841 


APPENDIX  II 

THE  NEWLANDS  BILL,  AND  THE  ACT  OF 
JUNE  17,  1902 

The  following  is  the  text  of  the  original  Newlands 
Irrigation  Bill,  introduced  January  26,  1901,  before  the 
appointment  of  the  famous  Committee  of  Seventeen  and 
nearly  eight  months  prior  to  the  accession  of  President 
Roosevelt : 

**  Be  it  enacted  by  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives 
of  the  United  States  of  America  in  Congress  assembled.  That 
all  moneys  received  from  the  sale  and  disposal  of  public  lands 
in  the  arid  and  semi-arid  States  and  Territories  beginning  with 
the  fiscal  year  ending  June  thirtieth,  nineteen  hundred  and 
one,  excepting  those  set  aside  by  law  for  educational  purposes, 
shall  be  reserved  and  set  aside  for  the  creation  of  a  fund  in  the 
Treasury,  to  be  known  as  the  '  arid  land  reclamation  fund,'  for 
the  construction  of  reservoirs  and  other  hydraulic  works  for 
the  storage  and  diversion  of  water  for  the  irrigation  and 
reclamation  of  arid  land. 

"  Sec.  2.  That  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  by  means  of  the 
Director  of  the  Geological  Survey,  be,  and  hereby  is,  directed 
to  continue  the  examination  of  that  portion  of  the  arid  region 
of  the  United  States  where  agriculture  is  carried  on  by  means 
of  irrigation  as  to  the  advantages  for  the  storage  of  water  for 
irrigating  purposes,  of  the  practicability  of  constructing  reser- 
voirs, together  with  the  capacity  of  the  streams  and  the  cost  of 
construction  and  capacity  of  reservoire,  and  such  other  facts 
as  bear  on  the  question  of  storage  of  water  for  irrigating  pur- 
poses as  required  by  the  Act  approved  March  twentieth,  eight- 
een   hundred  and   eighty-eight    and  also  to    investigate  the 

34» 


APPENDIX   II 

practicability  of  diverting  large  rivers  by  means  of  tunnels  or 
other  works,  and  of  providing  supplies  by  means  of  artesian 
wells. 

"  Sec.  3.  That  the  Director  of  the  Geological  Survey  shall 
from  time  to  time  make  reports  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior 
as  to  each  of  various  proposed  reservoirs,  diverting  canals,  or 
other  methods  of  procuring  water,  said  reports  to  show  the 
location,  cost  of  construction,  quantity,  and  location  of  such 
land  as  can  be  irrigated,  as  well  as  the  other  facts  relative  to 
the  practicability  of  the  enterprise. 

•*  Sec.  4.  That  upon  the  filing  of  such  report  the  Secretary  of 
the  Interior  may,  in  his  discretion,  withdraw  from  public  entry 
the  lands  required  for  reservoir  or  other  hydraulic  works,  to- 
gether with  the  public  lands  which  it  is  proposed  to  irrigate 
from  such  works. 

"  Sec.  5.  That  upon  the  determination  by  the  Secretary  of 
the  Interior  that  each  of  the  said  projects  of  reclamation  is 
practicable  he  shall  cause  to  be  let,  upon  proper  public  notice, 
contracts  for  the  construction  of  the  same,  in  whole  or  in  part, 
payments  to  be  made  from  the  arid  land  reclamation  fund : 
Provided,  That  no  such  contract  shall  be  let  until  the  necessary 
funds  are  available:  And  provided  further,  That  in  all  con- 
struction work  eight  hours  shall  constitute  a  day's  work  and 
none  but  citizen  labor  shall  be  employed. 

"Sec.  6.  That  upon  the  completion  of  each  irrigation  pro- 
ject, the  total  cost  thereof  shall  be  ascertained  and  the  amount 
divided  pro  rata  per  acre  of  the  lands  to  be  irrigated  thereby, 
and  that  said  amount  shall  be  made  a  charge  against  the  lands 
as  the  cost  of  a  right  to  the  use  of  water  from  said  system  of 
irrigation,  and  that  said  public  lands  shall  be  subject  to  home- 
stead entry,  after  notice  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  upon 
the  condition  that  in  addition  to  the  requirements  of  the  home- 
stead Act  the  entryman  shall  make  payment  to  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  cost  per  acre  of  water  right  as  above  ascertained, 
said  payment  to  be  made  in  not  to  exceed  ten  annual  instal- 
ments, and  each  entryman  shall  be  limited  to  the  entry  and 
settlement  of  eighty  acres,  or  such  lesser  amount  as  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Interior  may  designate,  and  the  moneys  thus  re- 

343 


APPENDIX    II 

ceived  shall  be  covered  into  the  arid  land  reclamation  fund : 
Provided  further ^  That  the  right  to  the  use  of  water  shall  be 
perpetually  appurtenant  to  the  land  irrigated,  and  beneficial 
use  shall  be  the  basis,  the  measure,  and  the  limit  of  the  right. 

"  Sec.  7.  That  in  case  the  water  thus  provided  shall  be  more 
than  sufficient  for  the  reclamation  of  the  public  lands,  or  if 
land  in  private  ownership  has  been  found  by  the  survey  above 
authorized  to  be  better  suited  for  the  utilization  of  the  stored 
or  divided  waters,  or  if  there  is  a  sufficiency  for  both,  then  the 
right  to  use  such  water  may  be  sold  at  the  rate  as  above  ascer- 
tained and  under  the  same  terms  ;  but  no  water  right  shall  be 
granted  to  any  landowner  or  occupant  for  an  amount  exceed- 
ing eighty  acres.  The  proceeds  of  such  sales  shall  be  covered 
into  the  arid  land  reclamation  fund. 

*'  Sec.  8.  That  the  following  shall  be  considered  as  arid  land 
and  semi-arid  land  States  and  Territories  within  the  meaning 
of  this  Act  :  Arizona,  California,  Colorado,  Idaho,  Kansas, 
Montana,  Nebraska,  Nevada,  New  Mexico,  North  Dakota, 
Oklahoma,  Oregon,  South  Dakota,  Utah,  Washington, 
Wyoming." 

Following  is  the  full  text  of  the  present  law : 

"  Be  it  enacted  by  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  of 
the  United  States  of  America  in  Congress  assembled,  That  all 
moneys  received  from  the  sale  and  disposal  of  public  lands  in 
Arizona,  California,  Colorado,  Idaho,  Kansas,  Montana,  Ne- 
braska, Nevada,  New  Mexico,  North  Dakota,  Oklahoma,  Oregon, 
South  Dakota,  Utah,  Washington,  and  Wyoming,  beginning 
with  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  thirtieth,  nineteen  hundred 
and  one,  including  the  surplus  of  fees  and  commissions  in  ex- 
cess of  allowances  to  registers  and  receivers,  and  excepting  the 
five  per  centum  of  the  proceeds  of  the  sales  of  public  lands  in 
the  above  States  set  aside  by  law  for  educational  and  other  pur- 
poses, shall  be,  and  the  same  are  hereby,  reserved,  set  aside, 
and  appropriated  as  a  special  fund  in  the  Treasury  to  be  known 
as  the  '  reclamation  fund,'  to  be  used  in  the  examination  and 
survey  for  and  the  construction  and  maintenance  of  irrigation 
works  for  the  storage,  diversion,  and  development  of  waters  for 

344 


APPENDIX    II 

the  reclamation  of  arid  and  semi-arid  lands  in  the  said  States 
and  Territories,  and  for  the  payment  of  all  other  expenditures 
provided  for  in  this  Act :  Provided,  That  in  case  the  receipts 
from  the  sale  and  disposal  of  public  lands  other  than  those 
realized  from  the  sale  and  disposal  of  lands  referred  to  in  this 
section  are  insufficient  to  meet  the  requirements  for  the  support 
of  agricultural  colleges  in  the  several  States  and  Territories, 
under  the  Act  of  August  thirtieth,  eighteen  hundred  and  ninety, 
entitled  *  An  act  to  apply  a  portion  of  the  proceeds  of  the  pub- 
lic lands  to  the  more  complete  endowment  and  support  of  the 
colleges  for  the  benefit  of  agriculture  and  the  mechanic  arts,  es- 
tablished under  the  provisions  of  an  Act  of  Congress  approved 
July  second,  eighteen  hundred  and  sixty-two,'  the  deficiency, 
if  any,  in  the  sum  necessary  for  the  support  of  the  said  colleges 
shall  be  provided  for  from  any  moneys  in  the  Treasury  not 
otherwise  appropriated. 

"  Sec.  2.  That  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  is  hereby  author- 
ized and  directed  to  make  examinations  and  surveys  for,  and  to 
locate  and  construct,  as  herein  provided,  irrigation  works  for 
the  storage,  diversion,  and  development  of  waters,  includ- 
ing artesian  wells,  and  to  report  to  Congress  at  the  beginning 
of  each  regular  session  as  to  the  results  of  such  examinations 
and  surveys,  giving  estimates  of  cost  of  all  contemplated  works, 
the  quantity  and  location  of  the  lands  which  can  be  irrigated 
therefrom,  and  all  facts  relative  to  the  practicability  of  each 
irrigation  project ;  also  the  cost  of  works  in  process  of  con- 
struction as  well  as  of  those  which  have  been  completed. 

"Sec.  3.  That  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  shall,  before 
giving  the  public  notice  provided  for  in  section  four  of  this  Act, 
withdraw  from  public  entry  the  lands  required  for  any  irriga- 
tion works  contemplated  under  the  provisions  of  this  Act,  and 
shall  restore  to  public  entry  any  of  the  lands  so  withdrawn 
when,  in  his  judgment,  such  lands  are  not  required  for  the 
purposes  of  this  Act ;  and  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  is  here- 
by authorized,  at  or  immediately  prior  to  the  time  of  beginning 
the  surveys  for  any  contemplated  irrigation  works,  to  withdraw 
from  entry,  except  under  the  homestead  laws,  any  public  lands 
believed  to  be  susceptible  of  irrigation  from  said  works :  Pro- 

845 


APPENDIX   II 

vided,  That  all  lands  entered  and  entries  made  under  the  home- 
stead laws  within  areas  so  withdrawn  during  such  withdrawal 
shall  be  subject  to  all  the  provisions,  limitations,  charges,  terms, 
and  conditions  of  this  Act ;  that  said  surveys  shall  be  prosecu- 
ted diligently  to  completion,  and  upon  the  completion  thereof, 
and  of  the  necessary  maps,  plans,  and  estimates  of  cost,  the 
Secretary  of  the  Interior  shall  determine  whether  or  not  said 
project  is  practicable  and  advisable,  and  if  determined  to  be 
impracticable  or  unadvisable  he  shall  thereupon  restore  said 
lands  to  entry  ;  that  public  lands  which  it  is  proposed  to  irri- 
gate by  means  of  any  contemplated  works  shall  be  subject  to 
entry  only  under  the  provisions  of  the  homestead  laws  in  tracts 
of  not  less  than  forty  nor  more  than  one  hundred  and  sixty 
acres,  and  shall  be  subject  to  the  limitations,  charges,  terms, 
and  conditions  herein  provided  :  Provided,  That  the  commuta- 
tion provisions  of  the  homestead  laws  shall  not  apply  to  entries 
made  under  this  Act. 

"Sec.  4.  That  upon  the  determination  by  the  Secretary  of 
the  Interior  that  any  irrigation  project  is  practicable,  he  may 
cause  to  be  let  contracts  for  the  construction  of  the  same,  in 
such  portions  or  sections  as  it  may  be  practicable  to  construct 
and  complete  as  parts  of  the  whole  project,  providing  the  neces- 
sary funds  for  such  portions  or  sections  are  available  in  the  rec- 
lamation fund,  and  thereupon  he  shall  give  public  notice  of 
the  lands  irrigable  under  such  project,  and  limit  of  area  per 
entry,  which  limit  shall  represent  the  acreage  which,  in  the 
opinion  of  the  Secretary,  may  be  reasonably  required  for  the 
support  of  a  family  upon  the  lands  in  question ;  also  of  the 
charges  which  shall  be  made  per  acre  upon  the  said  entries,  and 
upon  lands  in  private  ownership  which  may  be  irrigated  by  the 
waters  of  the  said  irrigation  project,  and  the  number  of  annual 
instalments,  not  exceeding  ten,  in  which  such  charges  shall  be 
paid  and  the  time  when  such  payments  shall  commence.  The 
said  charges  shall  be  determined  with  a  view  of  returning  to 
the  reclamation  fund  the  estimated  cost  of  construction  of  the 
project,  and  shall  be  apportioned  equitably  :  Provided,  That  in 
all  construction  work  eight  hours  shall  constitute  a  day's  work, 
and  no  Mongolian  labor  shall  be  employed  thereon. 

346 


APPENDIX    II 

.**  Sec.  6.  That  the  entryman  upon  lands  to  be  irrigated  by 
such  works  shall,  in  addition  to  compliance  with  the  home- 
stead laws,  reclaim  at  least  one-half  of  the  total  irrigable  area 
of  his  entry  for  agricultural  purposes,  and  before  receiving 
patent  for  the  lands  covered  by  his  entry  shall  pay  to  the 
Government  the  charges  apportioned  against  such  tract,  as 
provided  in  section  four.  No  right  to  the  use  of  water  for  land 
in  private  ownership  shall  be  sold  for  a  tract  exceeding  one 
hundred  and  sixty  acres  to  any  one  landowner,  and  no  such 
sale  shall  be  made  to  any  landowner  unless  he  be  an  actual 
bona  fide  resident  on  such  land,  or  occupant  thereof  residing  in 
the  neighborhood  of  said  land,  and  no  such  right  shall  per- 
manently attach  until  all  payments  therefor  are  made.  The  an- 
nual instalments  shall  be  paid  to  the  receiver  of  the  local  land 
office  of  the  district  in  which  the  land  is  situated,  and  a  failure 
to  make  any  two  payments  when  due  shall  render  the  entry 
subject  to  cancellation,  with  the  forfeiture  of  all  rights  under 
this  Act,  as  well  as  of  any  moneys  already  paid  thereon.  All 
moneys  received  from  the  above  sources  shall  be  paid  into  the 
reclamation  fund.  Registers  and  receivers  shall  be  allowed  the 
usual  commissions  on  all  moneys  paid  for  lands  entered  under 
this  Act. 

*'  Sec.  6.  That  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  is  hereby  author- 
ized and  directed  to  use  the  reclamation  fund  for  the  operation 
and  maintenance  of  all  reservoirs  and  irrigation  works  con- 
structed under  the  provisions  of  this  Act:  Provided,  Tliat 
when  the  payments  required  by  this  Act  are  made  for  the 
major  portion  of  the  lands  irrigated  from  the  waters  of  any  of 
the  works  herein  provided  for,  then  the  management  and  opera- 
tion of  such  irrigation  works  shall  pass  to  the  owners  of  the 
lands  irrigated  thereby,  to  be  maintained  at  their  expense 
under  such  form  of  organization  and  under  such  rules  and  reg" 
ulations  as  may  be  acceptable  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  : 
Provided,  That  the  title  to  and  the  management  and  operation 
of  the  reservoirs  and  the  works  necessary  for  their  protection 
and  operation  shall  remain  in  the  Government  until  otherwise 
provided  by  Congress. 

•'  Sec.  7.  That  where  in  carrying  out  the  provisions  of  this 

347 


APPENDIX   II 

Act  it  becomes  necessary  to  acquire  any  rights  or  property,  the 
Secretary  of  the  Interior  is  hereby  authorized  to  acquire  the 
same  for  the  United  States  by  purchase  or  by  condemnation 
under  judicial  process,  and  to  pay  from  the  reclamation  fund 
the  sums  which  may  be  needed  for  that  purpose,  and  it  shall  be 
the  duty  of  the  Attorney-General  of  the  United  States  upon 
every  application  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  under  this 
Act,  to  cause  proceedings  to  be  commenced  for  condemnation 
within  thirty  days  from  the  receipt  of  the  application  at  the 
Department  of  Justice. 

*'  Sec.  8.  That  nothing  in  this  Act  shall  be  construed  as  af- 
fecting or  intended  to  affect  or  to  in  any  way  interfere  with  the 
laws  of  any  State  or  Territory  relating  to  the  control,  appro- 
priation, use,  or  distribution  of  water  used  in  irrigation,  or  any 
vested  right  acquired  thereunder,  and  the  Secretary  of  the  In- 
terior, in  carrying  out  the  provisions  of  this  Act,  shall  proceed 
in  conformity  with  such  laws,  and  nothing  herein  shall  in  any 
way  affect  any  right  of  any  State  or  of  the  Federal  Government 
or  of  any  landowner,  appropriator,  or  user  of  water  in,  to,  or 
from  any  interstate  stream  or  the  waters  thereof :  Provided, 
That  the  right  to  the  use  of  water  acquired  under  the  provis- 
ions of  this  Act  shall  be  appurtenant  to  the  land  irrigated,  and 
beneficial  use  shall  be  the  basis,  the  measure,  and  the  limit  of 
the  right. 

•*  Sec.  9.  That  it  is  hereby  declared  to  be  the  duty  of  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Interior  in  carrying  out  the  provisions  of  this  Act,  so 
far  as  the  same  may  be  practicable  and  subject  to  the  existence 
of  feasible  irrigation  projects,  to  expend  the  major  portion  of 
the  funds  arising  from  the  sale  of  public  lands  within  each 
State  and  Territory  hereinbefore  named  for  the  benefit  of  arid 
and  semi-arid  lands  within  the  limits  of  such  State  or  Territory : 
Provided,  That  the  Secretary  may  temporarily  use  such  portion 
of  said  funds  for  the  benefit  of  arid  or  semi-arid  lands  in  any 
particular  State  or  Territory  hereinbefore  named  as  he  may 
deem  advisable,  but  when  so  used  the  excess  shall  be  restored 
to  the  fund  as  soon  as  practicable,  to  the  end  that  ultimately, 
and  in  any  event,  within  each  ten-year  period  after  the  passage 
of  this  Act,  the  expenditures  for  the  benefit  of  the  said  States 

348 


APPENDIX   II 

and  Territories  shall  be  equalized  according  to  the  proportions 
and  subject  to  the  conditions  as  to  practicability  and  feasibility 
aforesaid. 

**Sec.  10.  That  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  is  hereby  au- 
thorized to  perform  any  and  all  acts  and  to  make  such  rules  and 
regulations  as  may  be  ne<^-essary  ar.d  t  roper  for  the  purpose  of 
carrying  the  provisions  of  this  Act  into  full  force  and  effect." 


840 


INDSX 


Adams,  Edwabd  F.,  quoted, 
130. 

Africa,  13. 

Agricultural  industry,  persons 
engaged  in,  in  the  United 
States,  9. 

Agua  Fria  River,  Arizona, 
249. 

Alameda,  California,  155. 

Alaska,  201. 

Anaheim,  California,  founding 
and  character  of,  94. 

Ancient  canals  in  Arizona,  35. 

Animas  River,  New  Mexico, 
239. 

Aridity: — Effect  of  on  settle- 
ment of  Middle  West,  17;  is 
key  to  institutions  of  West, 
30. 

Arizona: — The  budding  civiliz- 
ation of,  247 ;  likeness  to  re- 
gion of  the  Nile,  247 ;  north- 
ern part  of  Territory,  248; 
Salt  River  Valley,  248;  its 
irrigation  systems,  249;  im- 
portance of  storage  plans, 
251;  Territorial  Water-Stor- 
age Commission,  252;  cli- 
mate, 252 ;  fruit  culture, 
253 ;  mineral  production, 
255;   social  elements,  256. 

Arkansas  Valley,  Colorado, 
166. 

Artesia,  New  Mexico,  243. 


Asia  Minor,  32. 
Austin,  Miss,  147. 
Australasia,  13. 
Aztecs  in  New  Mexico,  34. 

Bakersfield,  California,  147. 

Baldwin,  Historian,  34. 

Bear  Flag,  California's  day  of, 

94. 
Beaverhead    Valley,    Montana, 

233. 
Bee,  The  Omaha,  266. 
Bell,    Representative   John    C, 

276. 
Berkeley,  California,   155. 
Billings,  Montana,  237. 
Bitter   Root  Valley,  Montana, 

235. 
Blue  grass  region  of  Kentucky, 

compared   with   arid   region, 

39. 
Boone,  Daniel,  15. 
Boothe,  C.  B.,  273. 
Boyd,     David,     Historian     of 

Greeley  Colony,  88. 
Bozeman,  Montana,  235. 
Brisbane,  Albert,  77. 
Brodie,     Governor     Alex.     O., 

quoted,  251. 
Brook  Farm,  78. 
Bullfrog,  Nevada,  213. 
Butte,  Montana,  236. 

Cache  la  Poudbe  Valley,  Colo* 
rado,  166. 


851 


INDEX 


California: — The  Empire  State 
of  the  Pacific,  121 ;  why  so 
little  understood,  121;  influ- 
ence of  former  literature  on 
the  subject,  123;  speculative 
tendencies  of  the  past,  128; 
burdens  of  fruit-growers  be- 
fore co-operation  began, 
130;  valuable  lessons  of  past 
twenty  years,  131 ;  the  State 
compared  with  France,  131 ; 
agricultural  settlements  be- 
tween 1890-1900,  132; 
profitable  lines  of  produc- 
tion, 133;  future  of  the 
olive  industry,  134;  compet- 
itors in  fruit  growing,  135; 
the  mining  industry,  136; 
tendencies  of  future  growth, 
137;  the  coast  region,  137; 
the  Santa  Clara  Valley,  138; 
Southern  California,  139; 
Sacramento  Valley,  141 ; 
San  Joaquin  Valley,  146; 
birth  of  raisin  industry, 
147;  effects  of  fall  in  price 
of  wheat,  148 ;  possibilities 
of  transportation  canals, 
149;  eastern  slope  of  the 
Sierra  Nevada,  150;  Color- 
ado Desert,  151 ;  cities  of  the 
State,  154;  around  San 
Francisco  Bay,  154;  in  the 
Sacramento  Valley,  156;  in 
the  San  Joaquin  Valley, 
156;  in  the  South,  156;  See 
"  Evolution  of  Southern  Cali- 
fornia," 92;  orange  culture, 
100,  148. 

Cammas  Prairie,  Idaho,  195. 

Campbell,  Douglass,  32. 

Carey,  Senator  J.  M.,  270. 

Carey  Act,  193,  228,  270,  323. 

Carlsbad,  New  Mexico,  245. 

Carnegie,  Andrew,  quoted,  9. 

Carson  Valley,  Nevada,  213, 
216. 


352 


Carthaginians,  34. 

Chittenden,  Captain  Hiram 
M.,  271. 

Churchill  County,  Nevada,  219. 

Cimarron  River,  New  Mexico, 
240. 

City  Creek,  Salt  Lake  Valley, 
Utah,  61. 

Clark,  Senator  William  A., 
190,  262. 

Clark's  Fork  of  the  Columbia, 
187,  234. 

Cleek,  Samuel  C,  143. 

Cody,  Col.  William  F.,  227, 
322. 

Coeur  d'Alene  Lake,  Idaho, 
187. 

Colonization: — Three  great 
eras  of,  12;  impulse  of 
American  movements,  12; 
settlement  of  Atlantic 
Coast,  14;  movement  be- 
yond the  Alleghanies,  14; 
settlement  of  Mississippi 
Valley,  17 ;  causes  of  emi- 
gration movements,  49. 

Colorado: — The  New  Day  in, 
150;  effects  of  railroad 
building,  151;  scenery  and 
climate,  153;  mineral  re- 
sources, 154;  the  Arkansas 
Valley,  166;  the  San  Luis 
Valley,  166;  the  Western 
Slope,  167;  the  land  of 
peaches,  169;  local  patriot- 
ism, 171 ;  present  economic 
tendencies,   172. 

Colorado  Canyon,  248. 

Colorado  Desert,  151. 

Colorado  Springs,  Colorado, 
163. 

Columbia  River  Valley,  Wash- 
ington, 200. 

Comstock  Lode,  production  of, 
218. 

Co-operation :  — Influence  of 
aridity     in     favoring,     31; 


INDEX 


comparison  with  conditions 
in  Holland,  32;  Utah  com- 
mercial examples,  64;  as  em- 
ployed in  the  Greeley 
Colony,  Colorado,  89;  ex- 
perience of  the  Anaheim, 
California,  settlers,  95;  how 
utilized  at  Riverside,  Cali- 
fornia, 97;  California  fruit 
exchanges,  104;  necessity  of 
co-operation  in  Arid  Amer- 
ica, 328. 

Court  of  Private  Claims,  240. 

Creoles,  French,  early  settle- 
ment of,  in  Ohio  Valley,  15. 

Crocker  estate,  work  of,  in 
California,  147. 

Cuba,  13. 

Dakota:  growth  of,  17;  irri- 
gation in,  117. 

Damascus,  effects  of  irrigation 
in,  41. 

Davis,  Arthur  P.,  298. 

Deccan,  lands  of  the,  36. 

Denver,  Colorado,  165,  172. 

Department  of  Agriculture, 
co-operation  with  Reclam- 
ation Service,  302. 

•*  Desert,  The,"  John  C.  Van 
Dyke's,  quoted,  214. 

Douglas  County,  Nevada,  219. 

Drought,  the  great,  of  1890, 
265. 


Eden,  the  garden  of,  result  of 

irrigation,  42. 
Educational  advantages  in  the 

West,  xxiv. 
Eggleston,  Edward,  quoted,  50. 
Egypt,  34. 
Eight  hour  day  in  reclamation 

work,  296. 
Elephant  Butte  dam  site.  New 

Mexico,  240. 
Elko  County,  Nevada,  195,  218. 
Ellensburg,  Washington,  203, 

8A  353 


El  Paso,  Tesoas,  Heraldy  quoted, 

259. 
"  Emancipation,"  x. 
Emigration  Canyon,  Utah,  53L 
Esmeralda     County,     Nevada, 

219. 
Eureka  County,  Nevada,  219. 

Farms,    statistics   of,    in   the 

United  States,  9. 
Fayoom,  Province  of,  36. 
Finney  County,  Kansas,  109. 
Flagg,   Jack,   in   the  Rustlers* 

War,  224. 
Flagstaff,  Arizona,  248. 
Flathead  River,  Montana,  233. 
Fourier,        Francois        Marie 

Charles,  77. 
Fremont     County,     Wyoming, 

229. 
Fulton,  Robert  L.,  quoted,  218. 

Gadsden  Purchase,  22. 
Gallatin       Valley,       Montana, 

233,  235. 
Gapen,  Dr.  Clarke,  340. 
Garden  City,  Kansas,  109,  113. 
Gates,  George  A.,  xxv. 
(Jeological      Survey,      organiz- 
ation of,  263. 
Gila  River,  Arizona,  248. 
Goldfield,  Nevada,  213. 
Government   reclamation   proj- 
ects: 

Ana  River,  Oregon,  326. 

Bear  Lake,  Utah,  326. 

Big  Bend,  Washington,  327. 

Bellefourche,  South  Dakota, 
321. 

Bismarck,     North      Dakota, 
319. 

Boise-Payette,  Idaho,  314. 

Buford-Trenton,    North    Da- 
kota, 319. 

Chewaucan,  Oregon,  326. 

Cheyenne,      South      Dakota, 
326. 


INDEX 


Dubois,  Idaho,  324. 

Fort      Buford,      Montana — 
North  Dakota,  315. 

Garden  City  pumping,  Kan- 
sas, 324. 

Grand    Junction,    Colorado, 
324. 

Hondo,  New  Mexico,  318. 

Huntley,  Montana,  316. 

Klamath,  California-Oregon, 
311. 

Lake    De    Smet,    Wyoming, 
327. 

La  Plata,  New  Mexico,  325. 

Las  Vegas,  New  Mexico,  325. 

Malheur,  Oregon,  320. 

Milk  River,  Montana,  314. 

Minidoka,  Idaho,  194,  313. 

Niobrara  and  Snake  Rivers, 
Nebraska,  325. 

North  Platte,  Wyoming-Ne- 
braska, 316. 

Okanogan,  Washington,  326. 

Otter  Creek,  Oklahoma,  326. 

Palouse   River,   Washington, 
322. 

Sacramento      Valley,      Cali- 
fornia, 144,  324. 

Salt    River,    Arizona,    308, 
323. 

San  Carlos,  Arizona,  323. 

Shoshone,      Wyoming,      228, 
322. 

Shoshone  Indian  Reservation, 
Wyoming,  327. 

Silver  Creek,  Oregon,  327. 

Silver  Lake,  Oregon,  326. 

Strawberry     Valley,     Utah, 
326. 

Sun  River,  Montana,  325. 

Truckee-Carson,  Nevada, 

316. 
Uncompahgre,  Colorado, 

312. 

Urton    Lake,    New    Mexico, 
325. 

Utah  Lake,  Utah,  326. 


Walker  and  Humboldt  Riv- 
ers, Nevada,  325. 
Western  Slope  of  San  Diego 

County,  California,  324. 
White  River,  Colorado,  324. 
Yuma,       California-Arizona, 
153,  309. 

Grand  Junction,  Colorado,  168. 

Grand    River,    Colorado,    157. 

Great  Falls,  Montana,  237. 

Great  Plains,  rise  of  irrigation 
on,   106. 

Greeley,  Horace :  — Phalanx 

movement  supported  by,  77; 
encourages  the  Colorado 
project,  80 ;  his  last  letter  to 
Meeker,  90. 

Greeley  Colony,  of  Colorado: — - 
Its  relation  to  the  Phalanx 
movement  of  the  forties,  77 ; 
Meeker  proposes  the  under- 
taking to  Greeley,  80;  the 
colony  plan  compared  with 
the  Fourier  ideal,  81 ;  pub- 
lication of  prospectus,  83; 
irrigation  troubles,  84;  tri- 
umph of  the  "  Greeley  po- 
tato," 85;  social  life  in  the 
Colony,  87;  influence  of 
colony  on  development  of 
State,  90. 

Green  River,  Colorado,  168. 

Green,  William  Semple,  146; 
quoted,   146. 

Gregory,  J.  W.,  268. 

Grunsky,  C.  E.,  299. 

Hale,  Dr.  Edward  Everett: — 
Connection  with  New  Ply- 
mouth Colony,  of  Idaho, 
xvii,  191 ;  quoted,  xvii. 

Hall,  Benjamin  M.,  298. 

Hall,  William  Hammond,  145. 

Hansbrough,  Senator  Henry  C, 
280,  286. 

Harrison,  Benjamin,  quoted, 
281. 


854 


INDEX 


Helena,  Montana,  236. 
Hilgard,  Prof.   E.  W.,  quoted, 

33,  35,  37. 
Hinton,  Richard  J.,  264. 
Hitchcock,     Secretary     E.     A., 

298. 
Holland,    compared    to    South- 
ern California,  92. 
Homestead    law,    eflFect    of    on 

emigration,   17. 
Honey  Lake  Valley,  California, 

146. 
"  Horse       Heaven  '*       country, 

Washington,  203. 
Hubbard,  Elbert,  quoted,  262. 
Hudson  Bay  Company,  189. 
Humboldt      County,      Nevada, 

219. 
Humboldt,  Nevada,  216. 

Idaho:— The  Crude  Strength  of 
174;  contrast  between  north 
and  south,  174;  wonderful 
water  supply,  175;  forest 
area,  176;  climate  and 
healthfulness,  188  ;  four 
periods  in  history  of,  189; 
area  and  population,  190; 
resources  and  products,  190; 
prune  district,  191 ;  New 
Plymouth,  191;  upper  Snake 
River,  191;  private  reclama- 
tion projects,  193;  prices  of 
land,  194;  central  and  north- 
ern valleys,  195;  the  "old- 
timer,"  195. 

Illinois,  growth  of  after  Rev- 
olution, 15. 

Incas    in    South    America,    34. 

Indiana,  growth  of  after  Rev- 
olution, 15. 

Industrial  independence  se- 
cured by  irrigation,  43. 

Inyo   County,   California,    147. 

Iowa,   growth   of,    17. 

Irrigation: — Growth  of  the 
movement,    xi;    the    miracle 


of,  41;  Damascus  the  prod- 
uct of,  42 ;  it  made  the  beau- 
ties of  the  Garden  of  Eden, 
42;  opposed  to  land  monopo- 
ly, 43;  as  an  insurance  of 
crops,  43;  unfavorable  to 
employment  of  servile  labor, 
44;  influence  on  social  life, 
45;  foundation  of  scientific 
agriculture,  47 ;  Mormons, 
the  American  pioneers  of, 
55;  comparative  cost  of  pri- 
vate and  co-operative  sys- 
tems, 86;  district  law  of 
California,  148;  planks  in 
political  platforms,  273 ; 
congressional  appropriations 
for,  in  the  West,  275;  his- 
tory of  the  movement,  361; 
practical  methods  of.  Appen- 
dix I,  333;  in  humid 
lands.  Appendix  I,  333; 
for  national  irrigation,  Na- 
tional Irrigation  Congress, 
national  irrigation  law,  and 
National  Irrigation  Associa- 
tion, see  under  "  N  " ;  for 
government  reclamation  proj- 
ects, see  under  "  G." 

Irrigation  Age,  founding  of 
the,  268. 

Irrigation  conventions  in  west- 
ern Nebraska,  267. 

Jeffebson,  President,  takes  in- 
itiative in  Western  explora- 
tion, 23. 

Jefferson  Valley,  Montana, 
233. 

Johnson  County,  Wyoming, 
226. 

Jordan,  David  Starr;  xxv. 

Kansas: — Growth  of,  17;  irri- 
gation in,   110. 

Kentucky,  growth  of  after  Rev- 
olution, 15. 


355 


IIS-DEX 


Kennewick,    Washington,    203. 
King,  Clarence,  263. 
Kootenai  River,  Montana,  234. 

La  Plata  Riveb,  New  Mexico, 

239. 
Lander    County,   Nevada,    219. 
"  Lands  of  the  Arid  Region," 

PowelFs,  271. 
Lassen      County,      California, 

150. 
Leland  Stanford,    junior,    uni- 
versity, 156. 
Lewis  and  Clark,    the    famous 

journey  of,  23. 
Libyan  Desert,  36. 
Lincoln,  Abraham,  a    type    of 

the    settlers    engaged    in    a 

great  era  of  colonization,  17. 
Lincoln  County,  Nevada,  219. 
Lippincott,     Joseph       Barlow, 

298;  quoted,   145. 
Lovelock,  Nevada,  216. 
Los  Angeles,    California,    103, 

156. 
Louisiana  Purchase,  22. 
Lummis,    Charles    F.,    quoted, 

157. 
Lyon  County,  Nevada,  219. 


Madison  Valley,  Montana, 
233. 

Manhattan  Valley,  Montana, 
235. 

Manufacturers,  persons  em- 
ployed in,  in  the  United 
States,  9. 

Maxwell,  George  H.:  272,  286; 
quoted,  279. 

Maxwell  land  grant.  New  Mex- 
ico, 240,  266. 

McKinley,  William,  quoted, 
281. 

Mead,  Elwood,  302. 

Meeker,  Nathan  Cook:  experi- 
ence with  Trumbull  Phalanx, 
79;    first   trip    to    the     Far 

356 


West,  80;  originates  Colora- 
do project,  80;  death  of,  91. 

Mesa  City,  Arizona,  250. 

Milk  River  Valley,-  Montana, 
233. 

Miller,  Joaquin,  quoted,  xii. 

Milner,  Idaho,   193. 

Mining,  persons  engaged  in,  in 
the  United  States,  10. 

Minnesota,  growth  of,  17. 

Missoula,  Montana,  237. 

Missouri  River,  in  Montana, 
233,  236. 

Modoc  County,  California,  150. 

Moeris  Lake,  36. 

Mogollon  forest,  Arizona,  256. 

Mohammedans,  their  admira- 
tion for  Damascus,  42. 

Mondell,  Representative  Frank 
W.,  288,  292. 

Mongolian  labor  prohibited  in 
reclamation  work,  296. 

Monroe,  President  James,  22. 

Montana: — The  Prosperity  of, 
232;  influence  of  mountain 
topography,  232 ;  early 
ditches,  233 ;  opportunities 
for  settlers,  234;  fruit  cul- 
ture, 235;  agricultural  col- 
lege, 235;  important  valleys, 
235;  social  and  political 
life,  236;  cities  and  towns, 
237. 

Moors,  34. 

Mormons :  —  their  commoBi- 
wealth,  51;  pioneers  of  Am- 
erican irrigation,  51;  they 
illustrate  the  natural  eco- 
nomic tendencies  of  irriga- 
tion, 52;  arrival  of  first 
party  in  {Salt  Lake  Valley, 
52;  their  system  of  land- 
ownership,  57;  plan  of  di- 
versified farms,  61 ;  opposed 
to  minin*:^,  63 ;  financial  re- 
sults of  their  labors  for  forty 
years,  67;  leading  principles 


i 


INDEX 


of  their  industrial  syatem, 
70 ;  mortgage  indebtedness, 
71;  relation  of  church  or- 
ganization to  industrial  suc- 
cess, 74;  settlers  in  San  Luis 
Valley,  Colorado,  167 ;  in 
Uinta  Country,  Utah,  181. 
Musser,  A.  Milton,  67. 

National  Irbiqatiow— Rise  of 
the     cause,     261 ;     in     what 
States  and  Territories,  295; 
of  private     lands,     explana- 
tion of,  305. 
National     Irrigation     Associa- 
tion, 271. 
National        Irrigation        Con- 
gresses : 
First    at    Salt    Lake,    Utah, 
1891,  268. 
Second  at  Los  Angeles,  Cal., 

1893,  269. 
Third  at  Denver,  Colo.,  1894, 

270. 
Fourth    at   Albuquerque,    N. 

M.,  1895,  270. 
Fifth  at  Phoenix,  A.  T.,  1896, 

270. 
Sixth  at  Lincoln,  Neb.,  1897, 

270. 
Seventh   at  Cheyenne,  Wyo., 

1898,  270. 
Eighth    at   Missoula,    Mont., 

1899   270 
Ninth  at  Chicago,  111.,  1900, 

282. 
Eleventh     at     Ogden,     Utah 

1903,  191. 

Twelfth    at    El    Paso,    Tex., 

1904,  241. 

National  irrigation  law:  276; 
controversy  over  authorship 
of,  287:  provisions  of,  295; 
text  of  Appendix  II,  342. 

Nebraska:  growth  of,  17;  ir- 
rigation conditions  in  west- 
ern, 115,  267. 


Netherlands,  the,  civil izatioa 
of  compared  with  arid  re- 
gion, 32, 

Nevada: — The  Rising  State  of, 
213;  gold  fields,  213;  popu- 
lar misconceptions  of,  213; 
oases  in,  216;  prosperity  of 
farmers,  216;  climate  and 
productions,  216;  resources 
of  various  counties,  218; 
mineral  wealth,  218;  future 
of  the  State,  220. 

New  Fork,  Wyoming,  229. 

New  Mexico:  The  Awakening 
of,  238 ;  inadequacy  of  water 
supplies,  238 ;  the  northwest- 
ern counties,  239;  land 
grants  in,  240;  the  Pecos 
Valley,  242;  climate  and 
productions,  243;  sugar  beet 
culture,  244;  pasture  lands, 
245;  Commission  of  Irriga- 
tion, 246;  social  fabric,  247. 

Newell,  Frederick  Haynes: — on 
water  supply  of  the  plains, 
113,   298;    quoted,   210,   279. 

Newlands,  Senator  Francis  G., 
276,  280;  quoted,  288. 

Newlands  irrigation  bill.  Ap- 
pendix II,  342. 

Nez  Perce  Indian  Reservation, 
195. 

Nija,  Fray  Marcos  de,  238. 

Nile  River,  silt  in,  36. 

Ninety-seventh  meridan  10,  21. 

Nordhoff,  Charles,  123,  128. 

North,  Judge,  founder  of 
Riverside  Colony,  97. 

North  Yakima,  Washington, 
203. 

Nye  County,  Nevada,  219. 

Oakland,  California,  155. 
Ohio,  growth  of  after  Revolu- 
tion, 15. 
Olive   culture,   future  of,    134. 
Ontario,  California,  103. 


867 


INDEX 


Opportunitiei  in  the  West, 
xxii. 

Oquirrh  Mountains,  Utah,  53* 

Ordinances  of  1787,  16. 

Oregon: — The  State  in  Transi- 
tion, 205 ;  transportation 
facilities,  205;  population, 
205;  bonanza  farming,  206; 
humid  and  arid  sections, 
207 ;  need  of  irrigation,  208 ; 
climate  and  productions, 
209,  211;  water  supplies, 
210;  central  and  eastern 
parts,  210;  Lewis  and  Clark 
exposition,  212. 

Ostrich  farm  in  Arizona,  256. 

Palestine,  34;  resemblance  to 

Great  Salt  Lake  Valley,  53. 
Palmer,  Gen.  William  J.,  163; 

262. 
Palo  Alto,  California,  155. 
Palouse  country,  Idaho,  190. 
Parkman    Francis,    author    of 

The  Oregon  Trail,  23. 
Pasco,  Washington,  203. 
Payette,   Idaho,    191. 
Pecos  Valley,  New  Mexico,  242. 
Pend  Oreille  Lake,  187. 
Phalanx  movement,   77. 
Phoenix,  Arizona,  248. 
Pike,  Zebulon,  23. 
Platte  Valley,  Colorado,  166. 
Plumas     County,     California, 

146. 
Plymouth  Colony,  Idaho,  191. 
Pomona,  California,  103. 
Population     of     the     United 

States,  growth  from  1790  to 

1900,   10. 
Porterville,  California,  148. 
Portland,  Oregon,  209. 
Powell  Irrigation  Survey,  264. 
Powell,  Major    John    Wesley, 

261,  264,  298. 
Prescott,  Arizona,  248. 
Prescott,  Historian,  34. 


Prickly  Valley,  Montana,  233. 

Private  lands,  government  irri- 
gation of,  305. 

Professions,  persons  employed 
in,  in  the  United  States,  10. 

Prosser,  Washington,  203. 

Provo,  Utah,  177. 

Public  lands,  who  may  enter, 
303. 

Puget  Sound,  Washington, 
199. 

QuiNTON,  J.  H.,  298. 

Railway  mileage  in  the  United 
States,  9,  10. 

Rain-making  experiments,  108. 

Raymond,  Henry  J.,  debate 
with  Greeley,  79. 

Reclamation  Service,  U.  S.: 
first  annual  report  quoted, 
265;  board  of  consulting  en- 
gineers, 298 ;  organization 
of,  299;  details  of  work, 
303. 

Redlands,  California,  103. 

Reed,  Thomas  B.,  quoted  119. 

Reid,  Whitelaw,  quoted,  248. 

Reno,  Nevada,  213. 

"Right  Hand  of  the  Conti- 
nent," Lummis's,  157. 

Rio  Grande,  New  Mexico,  240. 

Rio  Verde,  Arizona,  249. 

Riverside  Colony,  California, 
97. 

Robertson,   James,   16. 

Robinson,  Solon,  79. 

Roosevelt,  President :  — First 
message,  283;  quoted,  284, 
285. 

Roosevelt,  Theodore:  201,  281; 
quoted,  259. 

Rosewater,  Edward,  266. 

Roswell,  New  M^exico,  246. 

Rustlers*  War,  223. 

SACBAMEI7T0,  California,  166. 


INDEX 


Salt  Lake  City,  Utah,  plan  of, 
58. 

Salt  River,  Arizona,  250. 

Salt  River  Valley,  Arizona, 
248. 

San  Bernardino  Valley,  Cali- 
fornia, 92. 

San   Diego,   California,    156. 

San  Francisco,  California,  154. 

San  Joaquin  Valley,  Califor- 
nia, 146. 

San  Juan  River,  Colorado, 
168. 

San  Juan  River,  New  Mexico, 
239. 

San  Luis  Valley,  Colorado, 
166. 

San  Pedro,  Los  Angeles  &  Salt 
Lake  Railroad  (  Clark 
Road),  184,  213. 

San  Timoteo  Hills,  California, 
92. 

Sanders,  W.  H.,  298. 

Santa  Clara  Valley,  California, 
138. 

Savage,  H.  N.,  298. 

Schools  in  the  West,  xxiv. 

Semi-arid  region,  boundaries 
of,  109. 

Sevier,  John,   15. 

Shafroth,  Representative  John 
F.,  275. 

Shawhan,  Benjamin  P.,  con- 
nection with  New  Plymouth 
colony,  of  Idaho,  191. 

Sheldon,  Lionel  A.,  269. 

Sheridan  County,  Wyoming, 
226. 

Shoshone  Falls,   Idaho,   187. 

Smythe,  William  E.: — connec- 
tion with  the  New  Plymouth 
Colony,  of  Idaho,  191;  with 
rise  of  the  national  irriga- 
tion cause,  266;  founds  the 
Irrigation  Age,  267. 

Snake  River,  Idaho,  186. 

Social    life   in    Arid    America, 


zxi;  effect  of  irrigation  on, 

46. 
Soap,  natural,  in  Nevada,  220. 
Soils,  effect  of  aridity  on,  37. 
South  America,  13. 
Southern  California:  evolution 

of,  92;  character  and  future 

of,   139. 
Spice  Islands,  13. 
Spokane,    Washington,   204. 
Stewart,  Senator  William  M., 

264. 
Stockton,   California,    156. 
Storey   County,   Nevada,   219. 

Tabor,  H.  A.  W.,  172. 

Temperaments,  eastern  and 
Western,  xv. 

Tennessee,  growth  of  after 
Revolution,   15. 

Texas,   irrigation   in,    118. 

Thomas,  Governor  Arthur  L., 
268. 

Tithing-house  scrip.  Mormon, 
63. 

Toltecs   in  Mexico,   34. 

Tonopah,  Nevada,  213. 

Trade  and  Transportation,  per- 
sons employed  in,  in  the 
United  States,  10. 

Travel,  statistics  of,  20. 

"  Triumphant  Democracy,"  Car- 
negie's, 9. 

Truckee,  Nevada,   216. 

Trumbull  Phalanx,  of  Ohio,  79. 

Tucson,  Arizona,  248. 

Twin  Falls  Land  &  Water  Co., 
of  Idaho,  193. 

Uinta  country,  Utah,  181. 

United  States,  condition  of  at 
close  of  Revolution,  5. 

University  of  Arizona,  experi- 
ments in  analyzing  silt  of 
Colorado  River,  40. 

University  of   California,   155. 

Utah: — The  Pleasant  Land  of. 


359 


INDEX 


175;  the  scene  from  Capitol 
Hill,  175;  Utah,  Salt  Lake, 
and  Webber  Valleys.  177; 
mineral  resources,  177;  cli- 
mate, 178;  agricultural  con- 
tradictions, 179;  lands  open 
to  settlement,  180;  irriga- 
tion laws  and  customs,  182; 
construction  of  Lucin  cut-off 
across  Great  Salt  Lake  by 
Central  Pacific  Kailroad, 
184. 

Van  Dyke,  John   C,   quoted, 

214. 
Van  Dyke,  T.  S.,  quoted,   128. 
Vermejo    River,    New    Mexico, 

240. 

Walcott,  Charles  D.,  Di- 
rector of  Reclamation  Ser- 
vice, 298. 

Walla  Walla,  Washington,  203. 

Warren,  Senator  Francis  E., 
270. 

Wasatch  Mountains,   53. 

Washington: — The  Giant,  197; 
climate  and  resources,  197, 
199,  202;  capital  for  devel- 
opment, 197;  strategic  situ- 
ation, 197;  population,  198; 
rainfall,  199,  202;  Puget 
Sound,  199;  arid  region,  200, 
202 ;  important  streams, 
200;  central  and  eastern 
part,  200;  market  for  pro- 
ductions, 201. 

Washoe,  Nevada,  219. 

Wealth,  total  in  the  United 
States,  10. 


Webber,  Thomas  G.,  65. 

Wells,  Governor  Heber  M.,  71. 

Wenatchee,   Washington,   203. 

Western  Pacific  Railroad,  213. 

Western  Slope  of  Colorado, 
167. 

Wheatland  Colony,  Wyoming, 
76. 

Wheeler,  Benjamin  Ide,  xxv. 

White  Pine  County,  Nevada, 
220. 

Windmill  irrigation  in  Kansas, 
111. 

Wisner,  G.  Y.,  298. 

Women  in  the  West,  xviii. 

Woodruff,  Wilford,  55. 

Worland,  Wyoming,  228. 

Wyoming :  — The  Unknown 

Land  of,  221;  stock  raising 
industry,  222,  229;  Rustlers' 
War,  223;  products  and  de- 
velopment, 226;  Bighorn  ba- 
sin, 227 ;  irrigation  develop- 
ment, 228;  population,  229; 
coal,  230;  excellence  of  wa- 
ter laws,  230. 

"  Wyoming,"  saddle-horse  pre- 
sented to  President  Roose- 
velt.  229. 


Yakima  Valley,  Washington, 

200. 
Ybarolla,  Senor  de,  106. 
Yellow  River  of  China,  36. 
Young,  Brigham,  72,  262. 
Yuma,  Arizona,  248. 

Zion's  Co-operative  Mercantile 
Institution,  Utah,  65. 


BY  THE  SAME  AtJTHOR 


CONSTRUCTIVE  DEMOCRACY 

The  Economics  of  a  Square  Deal 

Cloth  zamo  $1.50  net 

CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION— The  Party  of  the  Future. 

Part  I — The  Face  of  the  Times. 

The  Evolution  of  Plutocracy  —  The  Misrule  of  the  Almighty  Dollar 
—  The  Impotency  of  Political  Parties  —  The  Revolutionary  Remedy 
— The  Unripe  Fruit  of  Socialism  —  The  Points  of  Pressure. 

Part  II — The  Taming  of  Monopoly. 

The  Principle  of  Constructive  Progress  —  "A  Square  Deal  for  Every 
Man"  —  The  Evil  of  Railroad  Monopoly  —  The  Common-Sense  of 
the  Problem  —  The  Weakness  of  Proposed  Remedies  —  Progress 
toward  a  Scientific  Solution  —  Taxation  of  Railroad  Monopoly  — 
Doing  Justice  to  Capital  —  Doing  Justice  to  the  Public  —  A  "  Super- 
human Task  "  —  Preparation  for  Government  Ownership  —  The 
Monopoly  of  American  Industry  —  The  Benefits  and  the  Perils  of 
Monopoly  —  Mr.  Garfield's  Propositions  —  The  True  Path  to  Indus- 
trial Consolidation  —  The  Path  Illumined  by  the  Beef  Trust — The 
Cotton  Industry  as  an  Example — The  Organized  Man  with  the 
Hoe — Labor's  Crisis  and  the  Way  Out  —  The  Natural  Death  of  the 
Tariff  Question  —  Repeopleizing  the  Proprietorship  of  Industry  — 
The  Incentive  for  Enterprise  —  "  Whatever  Tends  toward  Unity  is 
True." 

Part  III  —  The  Surplus  Man. 

The  Wounded  on  the  Economic  Battlefield — The  Definition — The 
Perpendicular  Line — Plenty  of  Room  at  the  Bottom — The  Surplus 
Man  at  Bay. 

Part  IV  —  The  Unfinished  Republic. 

The  Surplus  Man  of  the  Past— The  Field  of  Future  Domestic 
Expansion  —  The  Fitness  of  Western  America — From  the  Stand- 
point of  Commercialism. 

Part  V  —  Institutions  for  Surplus  Men. 

A  Case  of  National  Infidelity  —  The  Rape  of  the  Public  Domain  — 
The  Irrigation  Policy  —  Mobilizing  the  Surplus  Man — The  Logic  of 
Co-operation — The  Nation  and  the  Moneyless  Man  —  An  Army  of 
Peace. 

Part  VI  — The  Summing  Up. 

The  Future  of  the  Individual — Shall  Religion  Have  a  New  Function? 


THE   MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

64-66  FIFTH  AVENUE,   NEW  YORK 


MAY  9  9  1017 


